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EDITED BY 

STUART J. REID 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



THE QUEEN'S PRIME MINISTERS. 

A SERIES OF POLITICAL BIOGRAPHIES. 
EDITED BY 

STUART J. REID. 



The volumes contain Photogravtire Portraits, 
also copies of A utographs. 

THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD, K.G. By J. A. Froude, 
D.C.L. $1 oo. 

VISCOUNT MELBOURNE. By Henry Dunckley, LL.D. 

("Verax.") $i oo. 

SIR ROBERT PEEL. By Justin McCarthy, M.P. $i oo. 

THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. By G. W. E. 

Russell. %\ 25. 

THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY. By H. D. Traill, 
D.C.L. $1 00. 

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. By the Marquis of Lorne. %\ 00. 

THE EARL OF DERBY. By George Saintsbury. %\ 00. 

THE EARL OF ABERDEEN. By Sir Arthur Gordon, ^i 00. 

LORD JOHN RUSSELL. By Stuart J. Reid. ^i 00. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 



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LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



BY 



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STUART J. REID 



I have looked to the happiness of my countrymen as the object 
to which my efforts ought to be directed 



Recollections and Suggestions 




NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1895 



DA534 



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TO THE 

LADY MARY AGATHA RUSSELL 

THIS RECORD 

OF 

HER FATHER'S CAREER 

IS 

WITH TRUE REGARD 

DEDICATED 



PREFACE 



This monograph could not have been written — in the in- 
timate sense — if the Dowager Countess Russell had not 
extended a confidence which, I trust, has in no direction 
been abused. Lady Russell has not only granted me access 
to her journal and papers as well as the early note-books of 
her husband, but in many conversations has added the 
advantage of her own reminiscences. 

I am also indebted in greater or less degree to Mrs. 
Warburton, Lady Georgiana Peel, Lady Agatha Russell, the 
Hon. Rollo Russell, Mr. G. W. E.- Russell, and the Hon. 
George Elliot. Mr. Elliot's knowledge, as brother-in-law, 
and for many years as private secretary, touches both the per- 
sonal and official aspects of Lord John's career, and it has 
been freely placed at my disposal. Outside the circle of 
Lord John's relatives I have received hints from the Hon. 
Charles Gore and Sir Villiers Lister, both of whom, at one 
period or another in his public life, also served him in the 
capacity of secretary. 

I have received some details of Lord John's official life 
from one who served under him in a more public capacity — 
not, however, I hasten to add, as Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer — but I ani scarcely at liberty in this instance to 
mention my authority. 



viii LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

My thanks are due, in an emphatic sense, to my friend 
Mr. Spencer Walpole, who, with a generosity rare at all times, 
has not only allowed me to avail myself of facts contained 
in his authoritative biography of Lord John Russell, but has 
also glanced at the proof sheets of these pages, and has 
given me, in frank comment, the benefit of his own singularly 
wide and accurate knowledge of the historical and political 
annals of the reign. It is only right to add that Mr. Wal- 
pole is not in any sense responsible for the opinions expressed 
in a book which is only partially based on his own, is not 
always in agreement with his conclusions, and which follows 
independent lines. 

The letter which the Queen wrote to the Countess Rus- 
sell immediately after the death of one of her ' first and most 
distinguished Ministers ' is now printed with her Majesty's 
permission. 

The late Earl of Selborne and Mr. Lecky were sufficiently 
interested in my task to place on record for the volume some 
personal and political reminiscences which speak for them- 
selves, and do so with authority. 

I am also under obligations of various kinds to the Mar- 
quis of Dufferin and Ava, the Earl of Durham, Lord 
Stanmore, Dr. Anderson of Richmond, and the Rev. James 
Andrews of Woburn. I desire also to acknowledge the 
courtesy of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. James 
Knowles, Mr. Percy Bunting, Mr. Edwin Hodder, Messrs. 
Longmans, and the proprietors of ' Punch,' for liberty to 
quote from published books and journals. 

In Montaigne's words, ' The tales I borrow, I charge upon 
the consciences of those from whom I have them.' I have 
gathered cues from all quarters, but in almost every ease my 
indebtedness stands recorded on the passing page. 



PREFACE IX 

The portrait which forms the frontispiece is for the first 
time reproduced, with the sanction of the Countess Russell 
and Mr. G. F. Watts, from an original crayon drawing which 
hangs on the walls at Pembroke Lodge. 

It may be as well to anticipate an obvious criticism by 
stating that the earlier title of the subject of this memoir is 
retained, not only in deference to the strongly expressed wish 
of the family at Pembroke Lodge, but also because it sug- 
gests nearly half a century spent in the House of Commons 
in pursuit of liberty. In the closing days of Earl Russell's 
life his eye was accustomed to brighten, and his manner 
to relax, when some new acquaintance, in the eagerness of 
conversation, took the liberty of familiar friendship by 
addressing the old statesman as ' Lord John.' 

STUART J. REID. 

Chislehurst : Jtme 4, 1895. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

EARLY YEARS, EDUCATION, AND TRAVEL 
1792-1813 

■ PAGE 

Rise of the Russells under the Tudors — Childhood and early sur- 
roundings of Lord John — Schooldays at Westminster — First 
journey abroad with Lord Holland — Wellington and the Penin- 
sular campaign — Student days in Edinburgh and speeches at 
the Speculative Society — Early leanings in politics and litera- 
ture — Enters the House of Commons as member for Tavistock i 

CHAPTER n 

IN PARLIAMENT AND FOR THE PEOPLE 

1813-1826 

The political outlook when Lord John entered the House of 
Commons — The * Condition of England ' question — The 
struggle for Parliamentary Reform — Side-lights on Napoleon 
Bonaparte — The Liverpool Administration in a panic — Lord 
John comes to the aid of Sir Francis Burdett — Foreign travel 
— First motion in favour of Reform — Making headway . 21 

CHAPTER III 

WINNING HIS SPURS 
I 826-1 830 

Defeated and out of harness — ^Journey to Italy — Back in Parlia- 
ment — Canning's accession to power — Bribery and corruption 



Xii LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



PAC.F 



— The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts— The struggle 
l>etween the Court and the Cabinet over Catholic Emancipa- 
tion — Defeat of Wellington at the polls —Lord John appointed 
Paymaster-Cieneral ........ 47 

CHAPTER IV 

A FIGHT FOR LIBERTY 

1830-1832 

Lord Grey and the cause of Reform — Lord Durham's share in 
the Reform Bill — The voice of the people — Lord John intro- 
tluces the bill and explains its provisions — The surprise of the 
Tories — Reform, 'Aye ' or ' No ' — Lord John in the Cabinet — 
The bill thrown out — The indignation of the country — Pro- 
posed creation of Peers — Wellington and Sidmouth in despair 
—The bill carried — Lord John's tribute to Althorp . . 63 

CHAPTER V 

THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA 

1833-1838 

The turn of the tide with the Whigs — The two voices in the 
Cabinet — Lord John and Ireland — Althorp and the Poor Law 
— The Melbourne Administration on the rocks — Peel in power 
— The question of Irish tithes — Marriage of Lord John — 
Grievances of Nonconformists — Lord Melbourne's influence 
over the Queen — Lord Durham's mission to Canada — 
Personal sorrow ......... 83 

CHAPTER ^T 

THE TWO FRONT BENCHES 

1840-1845 

Lord John's position in the Cabinet and in the Commons -His 
services to Education — Joseph Lancaster — Lord John's 
Colonial Policy — Mr. Gladstone's opinion — Lord Stanmore's 
recollections — The mistakes of the Mellx)urne Cabinet— TIki 
Duke of Wellington's opinion of Lord John — The agitation 



CONTENTS xiii 



."AGE 

against the Corn Laws — Lord John's view of Sir Robert Peel 
— The Edinburgh letter — Peel's dilemma — Lord John's com- 
ment on the situation . . . . . . . '113 



CHAPTER VII 

FACTION AND FAMINE 

1846-1847 

Peel and Free Trade — Disraeli and Lord George Eentinck 
lead the attack — Russell to the rescue — Fall of Peel — Lord 
John summoned to power — Lord John's position in the 
Commons and in the country — The Condition of Ireland 
question — Famine and its deadly work — The Russell Govern- 
ment and measures of relief — Crime and coercion — The Whigs 
and Education — Factory Bill — The case of Dr. Hampden . 136 



CHAPTER VIII 

IN ROUGH WATERS 

1848-1852 

The People's Charter — Feargus O'Connor and the crowd — Lord 
Palmerston strikes from his own bat — Lord John's view of the 
political situation — Death of Peel — Palmerston and the Court 
— * No Popery ' — The Durham Letter — The invasion scare — 
Ix)rd John's remark about Palmerston — Fall of the Russell 
Administration . . . , . . , , .163 



CHAPTER IX 

COALITION BUT NOT UNION 

1852-1853 

The Aberdeen Ministry — Warring elements — Mr. Gladstone's 
position — Lord John at the Foreign Office and Leader of the 
House— Lady Russell's criticisms of Lord Macaulay's state- 
ment — A small cloud in the East — Lord Shaftesbury has his 
doubts .......... 199 



xiv LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



CHAPTER X 

DOWNING STREET AND CONSTANTINOPLE 
1853 

PAGE 

Causes of the Crimean War — Nicholas seizes his opportunity — 
The Secret Memorandum — Napoleon and the susceptibilities 
of the Vatican — Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and the Porte — 
Prince Menschikofif shows his hand — Lord Aberdeen hopes 
against hope — Lord Palmerston's opinion of the crisis— The 
Vienna Note — Lord John grows restive — Sinope arouses 
England — The deadlock in the Cabinet . . . '213 



CHAPTER XI 

WAR HINDERS REFORM 
1854-1855 

A Scheme of Reform — Palmerston's attitude — Lord John sore let 
and hindered— Lord Stratford's diplomatic triumph — The 
Duke of Newcastle and the War Office — The dash for Sebas- 
topol — Procrastination and its deadly work — The Alma — 
Inkerman — The Duke's blunder — Famine and frost in the 
trenches .......... 236 



CHAPTER Xn 

THE VIENNA DIFFICULTY 

1855 

Blunders at home and abroad — Roebuck's motion — ' General 
Fevrier ' turns traitor — France and the Crimea — Lord John at 
Vienna — The pride of the nation is touched— Napoleon's visit 
to Windsor — Lord John's retirement — The fall of Sebastopol 
— The treaty of Paris ....... 254 



CONTENTS XV 

CHAPTER XIII 

LITERATURE AND EDUCATION 

PAGE 

Lord John's position in 1855 — His constituency in the City — 
Survey of his work in literature — As man of letters — His 
historical writings — Hero-worship of Fox — Friendship with 
Moore — Writes the biography of the poet — ' Don Carlos ' — A 
book wrongly attributed to him — Publishes his ' Recollections 
and Suggestions ' — An opinion of Kinglake's — Lord John on 
his own career — Lord John and National Schools — ^Joseph 
Lancaster's tentative efforts — The formation of the Council of 
Education — Prejudice blocks the way — Mr. Forster's tribute . 270 

CHAPTER XIV 

COMING BACK TO POWER 

1857-1861 
Lord John as an Independent Member — His chance in the City 
— The Indian Mutiny — Orsini's attempt on the life of 
Napoleon^The Conspiracy Bill — Lord John and the Jewish 
Relief Act — Palmerston in power — Lord John at the Foreign 
Office — Cobden and Bright — Quits the Commons with a 
Peerage . . . . . . . . . . 286 

CHAPTER XV 

UNITED ITALY AND THE DIS-UNITED STATES 
1861-1865 

Lord John at the Foreign Office — Austria and Italy — Victor 
Emmanuel and Mazzini — Cavour and Napoleon IH. — Lord 
John's energetic protest — His sympathy with Garibaldi and 
the struggle for freedom — The gratitude of the Italians — 
Death of the Prince Consort — The ' Trent ' affair — Lord 
John's remonstrance -The ' Alabama ' difficulty — Lord Sel- 
borne's statement — The Cotton Famine . . . . 29.9 



xvi LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

CHAPTER XVI 

SECOND PREMIERSHIP 
1865-1866 

PAGE 

The Polish Revolt — Bismarck's bid for power — The Schleswig- 
liolstein difficulty — Death of Lord Palmerston — The Queen 
summons Lord John — The second Russell Administration — 
Lord John's tribute to Palmerston — Mr. Gladstone introduces 
Reform — The ' Cave of Adullam ' — Defeat of the Russell 
Government — The people accept Lowe's challenge — The 
feeling in the country 320 

CHAPTER XVn 

OUT OF HARNESS 
1867-1874 

Speeches in the House of Lords — Leisured years — Mr. Lecky's 
reminiscences — The question of the Irish Church — The 
Independence of Belgium — Lord John on the claims of the 
Vatican — Letters to Mr. Chichester Fortescue — His scheme 
for the better government of Ireland — Lord Selborne's estimate 
of Lord John's public career — Frank admissions — As his 
private secretaries saw him 334 

CHAPTER XVni 

PEMBROKE LODGE 

1847-1878 

Looking back — Society at Pembroke Lodge— Home life — The 
house and its memories — Charles Dickens's speech at Liver- 
pool Literary friendships — Lady Russell's description of her 

husband — A packet of letters — His children's recollections — 
A glimpse of Carlyle — A witty impromptu — Closing days — 
Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone — The jubilee of the Repeal of the 
Test and Corporation Acts — ' Punch ' on the ' Golden Wed- 
ding ' — Death — The Queen's letter — Lord Shaftesbury's 
estimate of Lord John's career— His great qualities . . 349 

INDEX 371 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



CHAPTER I 

EARLY YEARS, EDUCATION, AND TRAVEL 
1792-1813 

Rise of the Russells under the Tudors — Childhood and early surround- 
ings of Lord John — Schooldays at Westminster — First journey 
abroad with Lord Holland — Wellington and the Peninsular cam- 
paign — Student days in Edinburgh and speeches at the Speculative 
Society — Early leanings in Politics and Literature — Enters the 
House of Commons as member for Tavistock. 

Government by great families was once a reality in 
England, and when Lord John Russell's long career began 
the old tradition had not yet lost its ascendency. The 
ranks of privilege can at least claim to have given at more 
than one great crisis in the national annals leaders to the 
cause of progress. It is not necessary in this connection 
to seek examples outside the House of Bedford, since the 
name of Lord William Russell in the seventeenth century 
and that of Lord John in the nineteenth stand fore- 
most amongst the champions of civil and rehgious liberty. 
Hugh du Rozel, according to the Battle Roll, crossed from 

B 



2 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Normandy in the train of the Conqueror. In the reign 
of Henry III. the first John Russell of note was a small 
landed proprietor in Dorset, and held the post of Constable 
of Corfe Castle. William Russell, in the year of Edward II. 's 
accession, was returned to Parliament, and his lineal descend- 
ant. Sir John Russell, was Speaker of the House of Commons 
in the days of Henry VI. The real founder, however' 
of the fortunes of the family was the third John Russell 
who is known to history. He was the son of the Speaker, 
and came to honour and affluence by a happy chance. 
Stress of weather drove Philip, Archduke of Austria 
and, in right of his wife, King of Castile, during a 
voyage from Flanders to Spain in the year 1506, to take 
refuge at Weymouth. Sir Thomas Trenchard, Sheriff of 
Dorset, entertained the unexpected guest, but he knew 
no Spanish, and Philip of Castile knew no English. In 
this emergency Sir Thomas sent in hot haste for his 
cousin, Squire Russell, of Barwick, who had travelled 
abroad and was able to talk Spanish fluently. The Arch- 
duke, greatly pleased with the sense and sensibility of his 
interpreter, insisted that John Russell must accompany 
him to the English Court, and Henry VII., no mean judge 
of men, was in turn impressed with his ability. The result 
was that, after many important services to the Crown, John 
Russell became first Earl of Bedford, and, under grants from 
Henry VIII. and Edward VI., the rich monastic lands of 
Tavistock and Woburn passed into his possession. The 
part which the Russells as a family have played in history 
of 'course lies outside the province of this volume, which is 
exclusively concerned with the character and career in 
recent times of one of the most distinguished statesmen of 
the present century. 



SCHOOLDAYS AT WESTMINSTER 3 

Lord John Russell was born on August i8, 1792, at 
Hertford Street, Mayfair. His father, who was second son of 
Lord Tavistock, and grandson of the fourth Duke of Bedford, 
succeeded his brother Francis, as sixth Duke, in 1802, at 
the age of thirty-six, when his youngest and most famous 
son was ten years old. Long before his accession to the 
title, which was, indeed, quite unexpected, the sixth Duke 
had married the Hon. Georgiana Byng, daughter of Viscount 
Torrington, and the statesman with whose career these pages 
are concerned was the third son of this union. He spent 
his early childhood at Stratton Park, Hampshire. When 
he was a child of eight, Stratton Park was sold by the Duke 
of Bedford, and Oakley House, which he never liked so 
well, became the residence of his father. Although a shy, 
delicate child, he was sent in the spring of 1800, when only 
eight, to a private school at Sunbury — only a mile or two 
away from Richmond, where nearly eighty years later he 
died. In the autumn of 1801 he lost his mother, to whom 
he was deeply attached, and almost before the bewildered 
child had time to realise his loss, his uncle Francis also died, 
and his father, in consequence, became Duke of Bedford. 

From Sunbury the motherless boy was sent with his 
elder brother to Westminster, in 1803, and the same year 
the Duke married Lady Georgiana Gordon, a daughter 
of the fourth Duke of Gordon, and her kindness to her step- 
children was marked and constant. Westminster School at 
the beginning of the century was an ill-disciplined place, in 
which fighting and fagging prevailed, and its rough and 
boisterous life taxed to the utmost the mettle of the plucky 
little fellow. He seems to have made no complaint, but to 
have taken his full share in the rough-and-tumble sports of 
his comrades in a school which has given many distinguished 

B 2 



4 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

men to the literature and public life of England : as, for 
instance, the younger Vane — whom Milton extolled — Ben 
Jonson and Dryden, Prior and Locke, Cowper and Southey, 
Gibbon and Warren Hastings. 

He learnt Latin at Westminster, and was kept to the 
work of translation, but he used to declare somewhat rue- 
fully in after-days that he had as a schoolboy to devote 
the half-holidays to learning arithmetic and writing, and 
these homely arts were taught him by a pedagogue who 
seems to have kept a private school in Great Dean's Yard. 
Many years later Earl Russell dictated to the Countess some 
reminiscences of his early days, and since Lady Russell has 
granted access to them, the following passages transcribed 
from her own manuscript will be read with interest : — 
' My education, for various reasons, was not a very regular 
one. It began, indeed, in the usual English way by my 
going to a very bad private school at Sunbury, and my being 
transferred to a public school at Westminster at ten or eleven. 
But I never entered the upper school. The hard life of a 
fag — for in those days it was a hard life— and the unwhole- 
some food disagreed with me so much that my stepmother, 
the Duchess of Bedford, insisted that I should be taken 
away and sent to a private tutor.' At Westminster School 
physical hardihood was always encouraged. ' If two boys 
were engaged to fight during the time of school, those boys 
who wanted to see the fight had to leave school for the 
purpose.' At this early period a passion for the theatre 
possessed him, drawing him to Drury Lane or Covent Garden 
whenever an opportunity occurred ; and this kind of relaxa- 
tion retained a considerable hold upon him throughout the 
greater portion of his life. Even as a child he was a bit of 
a philosopher. In the journal which he began to keep in 



DR. CARTWRIGHT AND WOBURN 5 

the year he went to Westminster School is the following 
entry :— ' October 28, 1803.— Very great mist in the morning, 
but afternoon very fine. There was a grand review to-day 
by the King in Hyde Park of the Volunteers. I did not go, 
as there was such a quantity of people that I should have 
seen nothing, and should have been knocked down.' Most 
of the entries in the boy's journal are pithy statements of 
matter of fact, as, for instance :— ' Westminster, Monday, 
October 10.— I was flogged to-day for the first time.' A few 
days later the young diarist places on record what he calls 
some of the rules of the school. He states that lessons 
began every morning at eight, and that usually work was 
continued till noon, with an interval at nine for breakfast. 
Lessons were resumed at two on ordinary days, and finished 
for the day at five. ' All the fellows have verses on Thurs- 
days and Saturdays. We go on Sundays to church in the 
morning in Henry VH.'s Chapel, and in the evening have 
prayers in the school.' 

. His 'broken and disturbed' education was next resumed 
at Woburn Abbey under Dr. Cartwright, the Duke's domestic 
chaplain, and brother to Major Cartwright, the well-known 
poHtical reformer. The chaplain at Woburn was a many- 
sided man. He was not only a scholar and a poet, but 
also possessed distinct mechanical skill, and afterwards won 
fame as the inventor of the power-loom. He was quick- 
witted and accomplished, and it was a happy circumstance 
that the high-spirited, impressionable lad, who by this 
time was full of dreams of literary distinction, came under 
his influence. ' I acquired from Dr. Cartwright,' declared 
Lord John, ' a taste for Latin poetry which has never left 
me.' Not merely at work but at play, his new friend came 
to his rescue. ' He invented the model of a boat which was 



6 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

moved by clockwork and acted upon the water by a paddle 
underneath. He gave me the model, and I used to make 
it go across the ponds in the park.' Meanwhile literature 
was not forgotten, and before long the boy's juvenile effu- 
sions filled a manuscript book, which with an amusing 
flourish of trumpets was dedicated to ' the Right Hon. 
William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer,' A couple of 
sentences will reveal its character, and the dawning humour 
of the youthful scribe : — ' This little volume, being graced 
with your name, will prosper ; without it my labour would 
be all in vain. May you remain at the Helm of State long 
enough to bestow a pension on your very humble and 
obedient servant, John Russell.' 

Between the years 1805 and 1808 Lord John pursued 
his education under a country parson in Kent. He was 
placed under the care of Mr. Smith, Vicar of Woodnes- 
borough, near Sandwich, an ardent Whig, who taught a select 
number of pupils, amongst whom were several cadets of the 
aristocracy ; and to this seminary Lord John now followed 
his brothers, Lord Tavistock and Lord William Russell. 
Amongst his schoolfellows at Woodnesborough was the 
Lord Hartington of that generation, Lord Clare, Lord 
William Fitzgerald, and a future Duke of Leinster. The 
vicar in question, worthy Mr. Smith, was nicknamed ' Dean 
Smigo ' by his pupils, but Lord John, looking back in 
after-years, declared that he was an excellent man, well 
acquainted with classical authors, both Greek and Latin, 
though ' without any remarkable qualities either of character 
or understanding.' He evidently won popularity amongst 
the boys by joining in their indoor amusements and granting 
frequent holidays, particularly on occasions when the Whig 
cause was triumphant in the locahty or in Parliament. 



SMALL GAME 7 

Rambles inland and on the seashore, pony riding, 
shooting small birds, cricket, and other sports, as well as 
winter evening games, filled up the ample leisure from the 
duties of the schoolroom. One or two extracts from his 
journal are sufficient to show that, although still weakly, he 
was not lacking in boyish vivacity and in a healthy desire 
to emulate his elders. When Grenville and Fox joined 
their forces and so brought about the Ministry of ' All the 
Talents ' the lads obtained a holiday — a fact which is thus 
recorded in sprawling schoolboy hand by Lord John in his 
diary. 'Saturday, February 8, 1806. — . . . We did no 
business on Mr. Fox's coming into the Ministry. I shot a 
couple of larks beyond Southerden. ... I went out 
shooting for the first time with Mr. Smith's gun. I got 
eight shots at little birds and killed four of them.' On 
November 5 in the same year we find him writing :— ' Eliza's 
[Miss Smith's] birthday. No business. I went out shoot- 
ing, but only killed some little birds. I used to shoot much 
better than I do at present. Always miss now ; have not 
killed a partridge yet.' Poor boy ! But he lived to kill 
two deer and a wild boar. ' Similarity of age led me,' states 
Lord John, in one of his unpubhshed notes, ' to form a more 
intimate friendship with Clare than with any of the others, 
and our mutual liking grew into a strong attachment on 
both sides. I only remark this fact as Lord Byron, who had 
been a friend of Clare's at Harrow, appears to have shown 
some boyish jealousy when the latter expressed his sorrow 
at my departure for Spain.' 

Now and then he turned his gift for composing verses 
in the direction of a satire on some pohtical celebrity. He 
also wrote and spoke the prologue at private dramatic per- 
formances at Woburn during the holiday season, and took 



8 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the part of ' Lucy ' in ' The Rivals.' A Httle later, in the 
brief period of his father's viceroyalty, he wrote another 
prologue, and on this occasion amused an Irish audience by 
his assumption of the part of an old woman. 

The political atmosphere of Woburn and Woodnes- 
borourgh as well as his father's official position, led the boy of 
fourteen to take a keen interest in public affairs. His satirical 
verses on Melville, Pitt, Hawkesbury, and others, together 
with many passages in his journal, showed that his attention 
was frequently diverted from grammar and lexicon, field 
sports and footlights, to politics and Parliament, and the 
struggle amongst statesmen for place and power. Although 
little is known of the actual incidents of Lord John's boy- 
hood, such straws at least show the direction in which the 
current of his life was setting. 

Whilst Lord John was the guest of Mr. Fox at Stable 
Yard, the subject of Lord Melville's acquittal by the Peers 
came up for discussion. Next day the shrewd young critic 
wrote the following characteristic remark in his journal : 
' What a pity that he who steals a penny loaf should be 
hung, whilst he who steals thousands of the public money 
should be acquitted ! ' The brilliant qualities of Fox made 
a great impression on the lad, and there can be little doubt 
that his intercourse with the great statesman, slight and 
passing though it was, did much to awaken political 
ambition. He also crossed the path of other men of light 
and leading in the political world, and in this way, boy 
though he was, he grew familiar with the strife of parties and 
the great questions of the hour. Holland House opened 
its hospitable gates to him, and there he met a young clergy- 
man of an unconventional type— the Rev. Sydney Smith — 
with whom he struck up a friendship that was destined to 



WITH LORD HOLLAND IN SPAIN 9 

endure. The young schoolboy has left it on record in that 
inevitable 'journal' that he found his odd clerical acquaint- 
ance ' very amusing.' 

In the summer of 1807 we learn from his journal that 
he passed three months with his father and stepmother at the 
English lakes and in the West of Scotland. With boyish 
glee he recounts the incidents of the journey, and his 
delight in visiting Inverary, Edinburgh, and Melrose. Yet 
it was his rambles and talks with Sir Walter Scott, whom he 
afterwards described as one of the wonders of the age, that 
left the most abiding impression upon him. On his 
way back to Woodnesborough he paid his first visit to 
the House of Lords, and heard a debate on the Copen- 
hagen expedition, an affair in which, he considered, 
' Ministers cut a most despicable figure.' On quitting 
school life at Woodnesborough, an experience was in store 
for him which enlarged his mental horizon, and drew out his 
sympathies for the weak and oppressed. Lord and Lady 
Holland had taken a fancy to the lad, and the Duke of 
Bedford consented to their proposal that he should accom- 
pany them on their visit to the Peninsula, then the scene 
of hostilities between the French and the allied armies 
of England and Spain. The account of this journey is best 
told in Lord John's own words : — 

' In the autumn of 1 808, when only sixteen years of age, 
I accompanied Lord and Lady Holland to Corunna, and 
afterwards to Lisbon, Seville, and Cadiz, returning by Lisbon 
to England in the summer of 1809. They were eager for 
the success of the Spanish cause, and I joined to sympathy 
for Spain a boyish hatred of Napoleon, who had treacher- 
ously obtained possession of an independent country by force 
and fraud — force of immense armies, fraud of the lowest 



lO LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

kind.' There is in existence at Pembroke Lodge a small 
parchment-bound volume marked 'Diary, 1808,' which 
records in his own handwriting Lord John's first impressions 
of foreign travel. The notes are brief, but they show that 
the writer even then was keenly alive to the picturesque. 
The journal ends somewhat abruptly, and Lord John con- 
fesses in so many words that he gave up this journal in 
despair, a statement which is followed by the assertion that 
the record at least possesses the 'merit of brevity.' 

Spain was in such a disturbed condition that the tour 
was full of excitement. War and rumours of war filled the 
air, and sudden changes of route were often necessary in 
order to avoid perilous encounters with the French. The 
travellers were sometimes accompanied by a military escort, 
but were more frequently left to their devices, and evil tidings 
of disaster to the Allies — often groundless, but not less 
alarming — kept the whole party on the alert, and proved, 
naturally, very exciting to the lad, who under such strange 
and dramatic circumstances gained his first experience of 
life abroad. Lord John had, however, taken with him his 
Virgil, Tacitus, and Cicero, and now and then, forgetful of 
the turmoil around him, he improved his acquaintance with 
the classics. He also studied the Spanish language, with 
the result that he acquired an excellent conversational know- 
ledge of it. The lad had opinions and the courage of 
them, and when he saw the cause of the Spanish beginning 
to fail he was exasperated by the apathy of the Whigs at 
home, and accordingly, with the audacity of youth, wrote 
to his father : — 

' I take the liberty of informing you and your Opposition 
friends that the French have not conquered the whole of 
Spain. . . . Lord Grey's speech appears to me either a mere 



THE QUESTION OF A UNIVERSITY II 

attempt to plague Ministers for a few hours or a declaration 
against the principle of the people's right to depose an in- 
famous despot. ... It seems to be the object of the Oppo- 
sition to prove that Spain is conquered, and that the 
Spaniards like being robbed and murdered.' It seems, 
therefore, that Lord John, even in his teens, was inclined 
to be dogmatic and oracular, but the soundness of his 
judgment, in this particular instance at least, is not less 
remarkable than his sturdy mental independence. Like his 
friend Sydney Smith, he was already becoming a lover of 
justice and of sympathy towards the oppressed. 

In the summer of 1809, after a short journey to Cadiz, 
Lord Holland and his party crossed the plains of Estre- 
madura on mules to Lisbon and embarked for England, 
though not without an unexpected delay caused by a slight 
attack of fever on the part of Lord John. On the voyage 
back Lord Holland and his secretary, Mr. Allen, pointed 
out to him the advantages of going to Edinburgh for the 
next winter, and in a letter to his father, dated Spithead, 
August 10, 1809, he adds : 'They say that I am yet too 
young to go to an English university ; that I should learn 
more there [Edinburgh] in the meantime than I should any- 
where else.' 

He goes on to state that he is convinced by their argu- 
ments, in spite of the fact that he had previously expressed 
' so much dislike to an academical career in Edinburgh.' 
The truth is. Lord John wished to follow his elder brother, 
Lord Tavistock, to Cambridge ; but the Duke would not hear 
of the idea, and bluntly declared that nothing at that time 
was to be learnt at the English universities. 

On his return to England it was decided to send Lord 
John to continue his studies at Edinburgh University. The 



12 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Northern Athens at that time was full of keen and varied 
intellectual life, and the young student could scarcely have 
set foot in it at a more auspicious moment. Other cadets 
of the English aristocracy, such as Lord Webb Seymour 
and Lord Henry Petty, were attracted at this period to the 
Northern university, partly by the restrictive statutes of 
Oxford and Cambridge, but still more by the genius and 
learning of men like Dugald Stewart and John Playfair. 

The Duke of Bedford placed his son under the roof of 
the latter, w^ho at that time held the chair of mathematics 
in the university, with the request that he would take a 
general oversight of his studies. Professor Playfair was a 
teacher w^ho quickened to a remarkable extent the powers of 
his pupils, and at the same time by his own estimable quali- 
ties won their affection. Looking back in after-years. Lord 
John declared that ' Professor Playfair was one of the most 
delightful of men and very zealous lover of liberty.' He 
adds that the simplicity of the distinguished mathema- 
tician, as well as the elevation of his sentiments, was re- 
markable. 

It is interesting to learn from Professor Playfair's own 
statement that he was quickly impressed with the ability 
of Lord John. Ambition was stirring in the breast of 
the young Whig, and though he could be idle enough 
at times, he seems on the whole to have lent his mind with 
increasing earnestness to the tasks of the hour. He also 
attended the classes of Professor Dugald Stewart during the 
three years he spent in the grey metropolis of the North, and 
the influence of that remarkable man was not merely stimu- 
lating at the time, but materially helped to shape his whole 
philosophy of life. After he had left Edinburgh, Lord John 
wrote some glowing lines about Dugald Stewart, which 



LIFE IN EDINBURGH 1 3 

follow — afar off, it must be admitted— the style of Pope. We 
have only space to quote a snatch : 

'Twas he gave laws to fancy, grace to thought. 
Taught virtue's laws, and practised what he taught. 

Intellectual stimulus came to him through another 
channel. He was elected in the spring of 18 10 a member of 
the Edinburgh Speculative Society, and during that and the 
two following years he was zealous in his attendance at its 
weekly meetings. The Speculative Society was founded 
early in the reign of George III., and no less distinguished 
a man than Sir Walter Scott acted for a term of years as 
its secretary. It sought to unite men of different classes 
and pursuits, and to bring young students and more ex- 
perienced thinkers and men of affairs together in friendly 
but keen debate on historical, philosophical, literary, and 
political questions. 

It is certain that Lord John first discovered his powers 
of debate in the years when he took a prominent part in the 
Tuesday night discussions in the hall which had been 
erected for the Speculative Society in 1769 in the grounds 
of the university. The subjects about which he spoke are 
at least of passing interest even now as a revelation of cha- 
racter, for they show the drift of his thoughts. He was not 
content with merely academic themes, such as Queen 
Elizabeth's treatment of Mary Queen of Scots, or the policy 
of Alcibiades. Topics of more urgent moment, like the war 
of 1793, the proceedings of the Spanish Cortes in 1810, the 
education of the poor, the value of Canada to Great Britain, 
and one at least of the burning subjects of the day — the 
imprisonment of Gale Jones in Newgate by order of the 
House of Commons — claimed his attention and drew forth 
his powers of argument and oratory. His mind was already 



14 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

turning in the direction of the subject of Parliamentary 
Reform, and from Edinburgh he forwarded to his father 
an essay on that subject, which still exists among the family 
papers. It shows that he was preparing to vindicate even 
then on a new field ihe liberal and progressive traditions 
of the Russells. 

The Duke of Bedford was never too busy or preoccupied 
to enter into his son's political speculations. He encouraged 
him to continue the habit of reasoning and writing on the 
great questions of the day, and Lord John, who in spite of 
uncertain health had no lack of energy, cheered by such 
kindly recognition, was not slow to respond to his father's 
sensible advice. 

Meanwhile the war in the Peninsula was progressing, and 
it appealed to the Edinburgh undergraduate now with new 
and even painful interest. His brother, Lord William Russell, 
had accompanied his regiment to Spain in the summer of 
1809, and had been wounded at the battle of Talavera. In 
the course of the following summer, Lord John states, in a 
manuscript which is in Lady Russell's possession : ' I went 
to Cadiz to see my brother William, who was then serving on 
the staff of Sir Thomas Graham. The head-quarters was in a 
small town on the Isle of Leon, and the General, who was 
one of the kindest of men, gave me a bed in his house during 
the time that I remained there.' Cadiz was at the moment 
besieged by the French, and Lord John proceeds to de- 
scribe the strategical points in its defence. Afterwards he 
accompanied Colonel Stanhope, a member of General 
Graham's staff, to the head-quarters of Lord Wellington, 
who had just occupied with his army the lines of Torres 
Vedras. He thus records his impressions of the great 
soldier, and of the spectacle which lay before him : — 



WELLINGTON AND THE WAR 1 5 

' Standing on the highest point, and looking around him 
on every side, was the English General, his eyes bright and 
searching as those of an eagle, his countenance full of hope, 
beaming with intelligence as he marked with quick percep- 
tion every movement of troops and every change of circum- 
stance within the sweep of the horizon. On each side of 
the fort of Sobral rose the entrenchments of the Allies, 
bristling with guns and alive with the troops who formed 
the garrison of this fortified position. Far off, on the left, 
the cliffs rose to a moderate elevation, and the lines of 
Torres Vedras were prominent in the distance. . . . There 
stood the advanced guard of the conquering legions of 
France ; here was the living barrier of England, Spain, and 
Portugal, prepared to stay the destructive flood, and to 
preserve from the deluge the liberty and independence of 
three armed nations. The sight filled me with admiration, 
with confidence, and with hope.' 

Wellington told Colonel Stanhope that there was nothing 
he should like better than to attack the enemy, but since 
the force which he commanded was England's only army, 
he did not care to risk a battle. ' In fact, a defeat would 
have been most disastrous, for the English would have been 
obliged to retreat upon Lisbon and embark for England, 
probably after suffering great losses.' Within a fortnight 
Lord John was back again in London, and over the dinner 
table at Holland House the enterprising lad of eighteen was 
able to give Lord Grey an animated account of the prospects 
of the campaign, and of the appearance of Wellington's 
soldiers. The desire for Cambridge revived in Lord John 
with the conclusion of his Edinburgh course. His wishes 
were, however, overruled by his father, who, as already hinted, 
held extremely unfavourable views in regard to the charac- 



l6 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

teristics at that period of undergraduate life in the EngHsh 
universities. The 'sciences of horse-racing, fox-hunting, 
and giving extravagant entertainments ' the Duke regarded 
as the ' chief studies of our youths at Cambridge,' and he 
made no secret of his opinion that his promising son was 
better without them. Lord John's father is described by 
those who knew him as a plain, unpretending man, who 
talked well in private life, but was reserved in society. He 
was a great patron of the fine arts, and one of the best 
farmers in England, and was, moreover, able to hold his 
own in the debates of the House of Lords. 

Meanwhile, at Woburn, Lord John's military ardour, which 
at this time was great, found an outlet in the command of a 
company of the Bedfordshire Militia. But the life of a 
country gentleman, even when it was varied by military drill, 
was not to the taste of this roving young Englishman. The 
passion for foreign travel, which he never afterwards wholly 
lost, asserted itself, and led him to cast about for congenial 
companions to accompany him abroad. Mr. George Bridge- 
man, afterwards Earl of Bradford, and Mr. Robert Clive, the 
second son of Earl Powis, agreed to accompany him, and 
with light hearts the three friends started in August 1812, 
with the intention of travelling through Sicily, Greece, Egypt, 
and Syria. They had not proceeded far, however, on their 
way to Southern Italy when tidings reached them that the 
battle of Salamanca had been fought and that Wellington 
had entered Madrid. The plans for exploring Sicily, Egypt, 
and Syria were instantly thrown to the winds, and the young 
enthusiasts at once bent their steps to the Spanish capital, 
in order to take part in the rejoicings of the populace at the 
victory of the Allies. They made the best of their way to 
Oporto, but were chagrined to find on arriving there that 



THE FIELD OF SALAMANCA 



t; 



although Salamanca had been added to the list of Wellino-- 
ton's triumphs, the victor had not pushed on to the capital. 
Under these circumstances, Lord John and his companions 
determined to make a short tour in the northern part of 
Portugal before proceeding to Wellington's head-quarters at 
Burgos. They met with a few mild adventures on the road, 
and afterwards crossed the frontier and reached the field 
of Salamanca. The dead still lay unburied, and flocks of 
vultures rose sullenly as the travellers threaded their way 
across that terrible scene of carnage. However, neither 
Lord John's phlegm nor his philosophy deserted him, though 
the awfulness of the spectacle was not lost upon him. ' The 
blood spilt on that day will become a real saving of life if it 
become the means of delivering Spain from French do- 
minion,' was his remark. 

At Burgos the young civilian renewed his acquaintance 
with the Commander-in-Chief, and added to his experience 
of war by being for a short time under fire from the French, 
who held the neighbouring fortress. Wellington, however, 
like other good soldiers, did not care for non-combatants at 
the front, and accordingly the youths started for Madrid. 
Finding that the French were in possession, they pushed 
southwards, and spent Christmas at Cadiz. The prolonged 
campaign decided them to carry out their original scheme. 
Leaving Cadiz at the end of January they set off, via Gibraltar, 
Cordova, and Cartagena, for Alicante, where they proposed 
to embark for Sicily. But on the way reports reached them of 
French reverses, and they were emboldened once more to 
move towards Madrid. They had hardly started when other 
and less reassuring rumours reached them, and Lord John's 
I two companions resolved to return to Alicante ; but he him- 
self determined to ride across the country to the head- 

c 



1 8 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



^ 



quarters of the army, at Frenida, a distance of 150 miles. 
We are indebted to Mr. Bridgeman's published letters 
for the following account of Lord John's plucky ride :- 
'Finding the French did not continue the retreat, John 
Russell, my strange cousin and your ladyship's mad nephew, 
determined to execute a plan which he had often threatened, 
but it appeared to Clive and me so very injudicious a one 
that we never had an idea of his putting it into execution. 
However, the evening previous to our leaving Almaden, he 
said, " Well, I shall go to the army and see William, and I 
will meet you either at Madrid or Alicante." W^e found he 
was quite serious, and he then informed us of his intentions. 
. . . He would not take his servant, but ordered him to leave 
out half-a-dozen changes of linen, and his gun lo^ed. He 
was dressed in a blue greatcoat, overalls, and sword, and 
literally took nothing else except his dressing-case, a pair of 
pantaloons and shoes, a journal and an account book, pens 
and ink, and a bag of money. He woul not carry anything 
to reload his gun, which he said his principal reason for 
taking was to sell, should he be short of money, for we had 
too little to spare him any. The next morning he sold his 
pony, bought a young horse, and rode the first league with 
us. Here we parted with each other with much regret, and 
poor John seemed rather forlorn. God grant he may have 
reached head- quarters in safety and health, for he had been 
far from well the last few days he was with us. . . . Clive 
and I feel fully persuaded that w^e shall see him no more till 
we return to England.' 

The fears entertained for Lord John's safety were well 
founded. Difficulties of many kinds had to be encountered 
on the journey, and there was always the risk of being 
arrested and detained by French piquets. But the 150 



A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY I9 

miles were traversed without mishap, and in twelve days 
the ' mad nephew ' entered the English quarters. He 
stayed at Frenida more than a month, probably waiting for 
an opportunity to see a great battle. But the wish was not 
gratified. Dictating to Lady Russell in his later life the 
narrative of his journey in Spain, he said : 'When Lord 
Wellington left his head-quarters on the frontier of Spain and 
Portugal for his memorable campaign of Vittoria, I thought 
that as I was not a soldier I might as well leave Lord Wel- 
lington and proceed on a journey of amusement to Madrid.' 

General Alava gave him introductions, and in the course 
of his journey he was entertained at dinner by a merry 
canon at Plasencia, who pressed upon him a liberal supply 
of wine.^. When Lord John declined taking any more, his 
host exclaimed : ' Do you not know the syllogism, " Qui bene 
bibit, bene dormit ; qui bene dormit, non peccat ; qui non 
peccat, salvatus erit " ? ' At this stage Lord John found 
it necessary to hire a servant who was capable of acting as 
guide. He used to say that his whole appearance on 
these journeys was somewhat grotesque, and in proof of 
this assertion he was accustomed in relating his adventures 
to add the following description : — 'I wore a blue military 
cloak and a military cocked hat ; I had a sword by my 
side ; my whole luggage was carried in two bags, one on 
each side of the horse. In one of these I usually carried a 
leg of mutton, from which I cut two or three slices when I 
wished to prepare my dinner. My servant had a suit of 
clothes which had never been of the best, and was then 
mostly in rags. He, too, wore a cocked hat, and, being tall 
and thin, stalked before me with great dignity.' Such a 
description reads almost like a page from Cervantes. 

Thus attended, Lord John visited the scene of the battle 

c 2 



20 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

of Talavera, in which his brother had been wounded, and 
on June 5, two days after the departure of the French, en- 
tered Madrid. Before the end of the month news arrived 
of the battle of Vittoria ; and the young EngHshman shared 
in the pubhc rejoicings which greeted the announcement. 
' From Talavera,' adds Lord John, ' I proceeded to Madrid, 
where I met my friends George Bridgeman and Robert 
Clive. With them I travelled to Valencia, and with them in 
a ship laden with salt fish to Majorca.' 

At Palma the travellers found hospitable quarters at 
the Bishop's palace, and after a brief stay crossed in an 
open boat to Port Mahon in Minorca — a rather risky trip, 
as the youths, with their love of adventure, made it by night, 
and were overtaken on the way by an alarming thunderstorm. 
Whilst in Minorca Lord John received a letter from his 
father, informing him of the death of his old friend General 
Fitzpatrick, and also stating that the Duke meant to use 
his influence at Tavistock to obtain for his son a seat in 
the House of Commons. ' He immediately flew home,' re- 
marks his friend Mr. Bridgeman, ' on what wings I know 
not, but I suppose on those of political ambition.' 

The Duke's nomination rendered his election in those 
days of pocket-boroughs a foregone conclusion. As soon as 
Lord John set foot in England he was greeted with the 
tidings that he had already been elected member for Tavi- 
stock, and so began, at the age of one-and-twenty, a career 
in the House of Commons which was destined to last for 
nearly fifty years. 



21 



CHAPTER II 

IN PARLIAMENT AND FOR THE PEOPLE 
1813-1826 

The political outlook when Loi'd John entered the House of Commons 
— The ' Condition of England ' question — The struggle for Par- 
liamentary Reform — Side-lights on Napoleon Bonaparte — The 
Liverpool Administration in a panic — Lord John conies to the aid 
of Sir Francis Burdett — Foreign travel — First motion in favour of 
Reform — Making headway 

Lord Liverpool was at the head of affairs when Lord John 
Russell entered Parliament. His long tenure of power had 
commenced in the previous summer, and it lasted until the 
Premier was struck down by serious illness in the opening 
weeks of 1827. In Lord John's opinion, Lord Liverpool 
was a ' man of honest but narrow views,' and he probably 
would have endorsed the cynical description of him as the 
' keystone rather than the capital ' of his own Cabinet. 
Lord Castlereagh was at the Foreign Office, Lord Sid- 
mouth was Home Secretary, Mr. Vansittart Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, Lord Palmerston Secretary at War, and 
Mr. Peel Secretary for Ireland. The political outlook 
on all sides was gloomy and menacing. The absorbing 
subject in Parliament was war and the sinews of war ; 
whilst outside its walls hard-pressed taxpayers were moodily 
speculating on the probable figures in the nation's ' glory 
bill.' The two years' war with America was in progress. 
The battle between the Shannon and the Chesapeake 



22 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

was still the talk of the hour ; but there seemed just then 
no prospect of peace. Napoleon still struggled for the 
dictatorship of Europe, and Englishmen were wondering 
to what extent they would have to share in the attempt 
to foil his ambition. The Peninsular campaign was costly 
enough to the British taxpayer ; but his chagrin vanished — 
for the moment, at least — when Wellington's victories 
appealed to his pride. Since the beginning of the century 
the attention of Parliament and people had been directed 
mainly to foreign affairs. Domestic legislation was at a 
standstill. With one important exception — an Act for the 
Abolition of the Slave Trade — scarcely any measure of note, 
apart from military matters and international questions, had 
passed the House of Commons. 

Parliamentary government, so far as it was supposed to 
be representative of the people, was a delusion. The 
number of members returned by private patronage for 
England and Wales amounted to more than three hundred. 
It was publicly asserted, and not without an appeal to sta- 
tistics, that one hundred and fifty-four persons, great and 
small, actually returned no less than three hundred and 
seven members to the House of Commons. Representa- 
tion in the boroughs was on a less worthy scale in the reign 
of George IH. than it had been in the days of the Planta- 
genets, and whatever changes had been made in the fran- 
chise since the Tudors had been to the advantage of the 
privileged rather than to that of the people. 

Parliament was little more than an assembly of dele- 
gates sent by large landowners. Ninety members were 
returned by forty- six places in which there were less than 
fifty electors ; and seventy members were returned by 
thirty-five places containing scarcely any electors at all. 



FALLEN BOROUGHS AND FANCY PRICES ^3 

Places such as Old Sarum — consisting of a mound and 
a few ruins — returned two members ; whilst Manchester, 
Leeds, and Birmingham, in spite of their great populations, 
and in spite, too, of keen political intelligence and far- 
reaching commercial activity, were not yet judged worthy 
of the least voice in affairs. At Gatton the right of election 
lay in the hands of freeholders and householders paying 
scot and lot ; but the only elector was Lord Monson, who 
returned two members. Many of the boroughs were bought 
at a fancy price by men ambitious to enter Parliament — a 
method which seems, however, to have had the advantage 
of economy when the cost of some of the elections is taken 
into account. An election for Northampton cost the two 
candidates 30,000/. each, whilst Lord Milton and Mr. 
Lascelles, in 1807, spent between them 200,000/. at a 
contested election for the county of York. 

Bribery and corruption were of course practised 
wholesale, and publicans fleeced politicians and made 
fortunes out of the pockets of aspirants for Westminster. 
In the ' People's Book ' an instance is cited of the way 
some borough elections were 'managed.' 'The patron of a 
large town in Ireland, finding, on the approach of an 
election, that opposition was to be made to his interest, 
marched a regiment of soldiers into the place from Lough- 
rea, where they were quartered, and caused them to be 
elected freemen. These military freemen then voted for 
his friend, who was, of course, returned ! ' Inequality, 
inadequacy, unreality, corruption — these were the leading 
traits of the House of Commons. The House of Commons 
no more represented the people of the United Kingdom 
than the parish council of Little Peddleton mirrors the 
mind of Europe. 



24 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

The statute-book was disfigured by excessive penalities. 
Men were put in the pillory for perjury, libel, and the like. 
Forgers, robbers, incendiaries, poachers, and mutilators of 
cattle were sent to the gallows. Ignorance and brutality 
prevailed amongst large sections of the people both in 
town and country, and the privileged classes, in spite of 
vulgar ostentation and the parade of fine manners, set 
them an evil example in both directions. Yet, though 
the Church of England had no vision of the needs of 
the people and no voice for their wrongs, the great wave 
of religious life which had followed the preaching of Whit- 
field and Wesley had not spent its force, nor was it destined 
to do so before it had awakened in the multitude a spirit 
of quickened intelligence and self-respect which made them 
restive under political servitude and in the presence of 
acknowledged but unredressed grievances. Education, 
through the disinterested efforts of a group of philanthropists, 
was, moreover, beginning — in some slight degree, at least — 
to leaven the mass of ignorance in the country, the power 
of the press was making itself felt, and other agencies were 
also beginning to dispel the old apathy born of despair. 

The French Revolution, with its dramatic overthrow of 
tyranny and its splendid watchword, ' Liberty, Equality, 
Fraternity,' made its own appeal to the hope as well as the 
imagination of the English people, although the sanguinary 
incidents which marked it retarded the movement for Reform 
in England, and as a matter of fact sent the Reformers into 
the wilderness for the space of forty years. 

More than a quarter of a century before the birth of 
Lord John Russell, who was destined to carry the first 
Reform Bill through the House of Commons, Lord 
Chatham had not hesitated to denounce the borough 



'FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE' 25 

representation of the country as the 'rotten part of our 
constitution,' which, he said, resembled a mortified Kmb; 
and he had added the significant words, ' If it does not drop, 
it must be amputated.' He held that it was useless to look 
for the strength and vigour of the constitution in little pocket- 
boroughs, and that the nation ought rather to rely on the 
'great cities and counties.' Fox, in a debate in 1796, 
declared that peace could never be secured until the Con- 
stitution was amended. He added : ' The voice of the 
representatives of the people must prevail over the executive 
ministers of the Crown ; the people must be restored to 
their just rights.' These warnings fell unheeded, until the 
strain of long-continued war, bad harvests, harsh poor laws, 
and exorbitant taxes on the necessities of hfe conspired to 
goad the people to the verge of open rebellion. 

Wilkes, Pitt, Burdett, Cartwright, and Grey, again and 
again returned to the charge, only to find, however, that the 
strongholds of privilege were not easily overthrown. The year 
1792, in which, by a noteworthy coincidence, Lord John 
Russell was born, was rendered memorable in the history of 
a movement with which his name will always be associated 
by the formation of the society of the ' Friends of the People,' 
an influential association which had its place of meeting at 
the Freemasons' Tavern. Amongst its first members were 
Mr. Lambton (father of the first Earl of Durham), Mr 
(afterwards Sir James) Mackintosh, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. 
(afterwards Lord) Erskine, Mr. Charles (afterwards Earl) 
Grey, and more than twenty other members of Parliament. 
In the following year Mr. Grey brought forward the cele- 
brated petition of the Friends of the People in the House 
of Commons. It exposed the abuses of the existing elec- 
toral system and presented a powerful argument for Par- 



26 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

liamentary Reform. He moved that the petition should 
be referred to the consideration ' of a committee ' ; but 
Pitt, in spite of his own measure on the subject in 1785, 
was now kikewarm about Reform, and accordingly opposed 
as ' inopportune ' such an inquiry. ' This is not a time,' 
were his words, ' to make hazardous experiments.' The 
spirit of anarchy, in his view, was abroad, and Burke's 
' Reflections,' had of course increased the panic of the 
moment. Although Grey pressed the motion, only 141 
members supported it, and though four years later he 
moved for leave to bring in a bill on the subject, justice 
and common sense were again over-ridden, and, so far as 
Parliament was concerned, the question slept until 1809, 
when Sir Francis Burdett revived the agitation. 

Meanwhile, men of the stamp of Home Tooke, William 
Cobbett, Hone, 'Orator' Hunt, and Major Cartwright — 
brother of Lord John Russell's tutor at Woburn, and the 
originator of the popular cry, ' One man, one vote ' — were in 
various ways keeping the question steadily before the minds 
of the people. Hampden Clubs and other democratic asso- 
ciations were also springing up in various parts of the 
country, sometimes to the advantage of demagogues of 
damaged reputation rather than to the advancement of the 
popular cause. Sir Francis Burdett may be said to have 
represented the Reformers in Parliament during the re- 
mainder of the reign of George HI., though, just as the old 
order was changing. Earl Grey, in 181 9, pubUcly renewed his 
connection with the question, and pledged himself to support 
any sound and judicious measure which promised to deal 
effectively with known abuses. In spite of the apathy of 
Parliament and the sullen opposition of the privileged classes 
to all projects of the kind, whether great or small, sweeping 



LORD JOHN'S MAIDEN SPEECH 2/ 

or partial, the question was slowly ripening in the public 
mind. Sydney Smith in 1819 declared, ' I think all wise 
men should begin to turn their minds Reformwards. We 
shall do it better than Mr. Hunt or Mr. Cobbett. Done it 
7iiust and will be.' In the following year Lord John Russell, 
at the age of twenty-eight, became identified with the question 
of Parliamentary Reform by bringing before the House of 
Commons a measure for the redress of certain scandalous 
grievances, chiefly at Grampound. When Lord John's Par- 
liamentary career began, George HL was hopelessly mad 
and blind, and, as if to heighten the depressing aspect of 
pubHc affairs, the scandalous conduct of his sons was strain- 
ing to the breaking-point the loyalty of men of intelligence 
to the Throne. 

Lord John's maiden speech in Parliament was directed 
against the proposal of the Liverpool Administration to 
enforce its views in regard to the union of Norway and 
Sweden. It escaped the attention of ParHamentary reporters 
and has passed into oblivion. The pages of ' Hansard,' how- 
ever, give a brief summary of his next speech, which, hke its 
predecessor, was on the side of liberty. It was delivered on 
July 14, 1814, in opposition to the second reading of the 
Alien Acts, which in spite of such a protest quickly became 
law. His comments were concise and characteristic. 'He 
considered the Act to be one which was very liable to abuse. 
The present time was that which least called for it ; and 
Ministers, in bringing forward the measure now because it 
had been necessary before, reminded him of the unfortunate 
wag mentioned in ' Joe Miller,' who was so fond of rehearsing 
a joke that he always repeated it at the wrong time.' Dur- 
ing the first months of his Parliamentary experience Lord 
John was elected a member of Grillion's Club, which had 



28 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

been eetablished in Bond Street about twelve months pre- 
viously, and which became in after-years a favourite haunt 
of many men of light and leading. It was founded on a 
somewhat novel basis. Leading members of the Whig and 
Tory parties met for social purposes. Political discussion 
was strictly tabooed, and nothing but the amenities of life 
were cultivated. In after-years the club became to Lord 
John Russell, as it has also been to many distinguished 
politicians, a welcome haven from the turmoil of West- 
minster. 

Delicate health in the autumn quickened Lord John's 
desire to rene.w the pleasures of foreign travel. He accord- 
ingly went by sea to Italy, and arrived at Leghorn in the 
opening days of December. He was still wandering in 
Southern Europe when Parliament reassembled, and the 
Christmas Eve of that year was rendered memorable to 
him by an interview with Napoleon in exile at Elba. 

Through the kindness of Lady Russell it is possible 
here to quote from an old-fashioned leather-bound volume 
in her husband's handwriting, which gives a detailed account 
of the incidents of his Italian tour in 1 814-15, and of his 
conversation on this occasion with the banished despot of 
Europe. Part of what follows has already been published 
by Mr. Walpole, but much of it has remained for eighty years 
in the privacy of Lord John's own notebook, from the faded 
pages of which it is now transcribed : — ' Napoleon was 
dressed in a green coat, with a hat in his hand, very much 
as he is painted ; but, excepting the resemblance of dress, 
I had a very mistaken idea of him from his portrait. He 
appears very short, which is partly owing to his being very 
fat, his hands and legs being quite swollen and unwieldy. 
That makes him appear awkward, and not unlike the 



A GLIMPSE OF NAPOLEON 29 

whole-length figure of Gibbon the historian. Besides this, 
instead of the bold-marked countenance that I expected, 
he has fat cheeks and rather a turn-up nose, which, to 
bring in another historian, makes the shape of his face 
resemble the portraits of Hume. He has a dusky grey eye, 
which would be called vicious in a horse, and the shape of 
his mouth expresses contempt and decision. His manner 
is very good-natured, and seems studied to put one at one's 
ease by its familiarity ; his smile and laugh are very agree- 
able ; he asks a number of questions without object, and 
often repeats them, a habit which he has, no doubt, acquired 
during fifteen years of supreme command. He began asking 
me about my family, the allowance my father gave me, if I 
ran into debt, drank, played, &c. He asked me if I had 
been in Spain, and if I was not imprisoned by the Inqui- 
sition. I told him that I had seen the abohtion of the 
Inquisition voted, and of the injudicious manner in which it 
was done.* 

Napoleon told Lord John that Ferdinand was in the hands 
of the priests. Spain, like Italy, he added, was a fine country, 
especially Andalusia and Seville. Lord John admitted this, 
but spoke of the uncultivated nature of the land. ' Agricul- 
ture,' rephed Napoleon, ' is neglected because the land is in 
the hands of the Church.' ' And of the grandees,' suggested 
his visitor. 'Yes,' was the answer, 'who have privileges 
contrary to the public prosperity.' Napoleon added that 
he thought the evil might be remedied by divided pro- 
perty and abolishing hurtful privileges, as was done in 
France. Afterwards Napoleon asked many questions 
about the Cortes, and when Lord John told him that 
many of the members made good speeches on abstract 
questions, but they failed jvhen any practical debate on 



30 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

finance or war took place, Napoleon drily remarked : 
' Oui, faute de I'habitude de gouverner.' Presently the talk 
drifted to Wellington, or rather Napoleon adroitly led it 
thither. He described the man who had driven the "French 
out of Spain as a 'grand chasseur,' and asked if Wellington 
liked Paris. Lord John replied that he thought not, and 
added that Wellington had said that he should find himself 
much at a loss as to what to do in time of peace, as he 
seemed scarcely to like anything but war. Whereupon 
Napoleon exclaimed, ' La guerre est un grand jeu, une belle 
occupation.' He expressed his surprise that England should 
have sent the Duke to Paris, and he added, evidently with 
a touch of bitterness, ' On n'aime pas I'homme par qui on a 
ete battu.' 

The Emperor's great anxiety seemed to be to get reliable 
tidings of the condition of France. Lord John's own words 
are : ' He inquired if I had seen at Florence many English- 
men who came from there, and when I mentioned Lord 
Holland, he asked if he thought things went well with the 
Bourbons. When I answered in the negative he seemed 
delighted, and asked if Lord Holland thought they would 
be able to stay there.' On this point Lord John was not 
able to satisfy him, and Napoleon said that he understood 
that the Bourbons had neglected the Englishmen who had 
treated them well in England, and particularly the Duke ot 
Buckingham, and he condemned their lack of gratitude. 
Lord John suggested that the Bourbons were afraid to be 
thought to be dependent on the English, but Napoleon 
brushed this aside by asserting that the English in general 
were very well received. In a mocking tone he expressed 
his wish to know whether the army was much attached to 
the Bourbons. The Vienna Congress was, of course, just 



napoleon's prediction about INDIA 3 1 

then in progress, and Napoleon showed himself nothing 
loth to talk about it. He said : ' The Powers will disagree, 
but they will not go to war.' He spoke of the Regent's 
conduct to the Princess as very impolitic, and he added that 
it shocked the bienseances by the observance of which his 
father George HI. had become so popular. He declared 
that our struggle with America was 'une guerre de ven- 
geance,' as the frontier question could not possibly be of 
any importance. According to Napoleon, the great supe- 
riority of England to France lay in her aristocracy. 

Napoleon stated that he had intended to create a new 
aristocracy in France by marrying his officers to the daughters 
of the old nobility, and he added that he had reserved a fund 
from the contributions which he levied when he made 
treaties with Austria, Prussia, &c., in order to found these 
new families. Speaking of some of the naval engagements, 
' he found great fault with the French admiral who fought 
the battle of the Nile, and pointed out what he ought to 
have done ; but he found most fault with the admiral who 
fought Sir R. Calder for not disabhng his fleet, and said 
that if he could have got the Channel clear then, or at any 
other time, he would have invaded England.' Talleyrand, 
he declared, had advised the war with Spain, and Napoleon 
also made out that he had prevented him from saving the 
Due d'Enghien. Spain ought to have been conquered, and 
Napoleon declared that he would have gone there himself 
if the war with Russia had not occurred. England would 
repent of bringing the Russians so far, and he added in this 
connection the remarkable words, 'They will deprive her 
of India.' 

After lingering for a while in Vienna, Florence, Rome, 
Naples, and other cities, Lord John returned home by way 



32 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

of Germany, and on June 5 he spoke in Parliament against 
the renewal of hostilities. He was one of the small minority 
in Parliament who refused to regard Napoleon's flight from 
Elba as a sufficient casus belli. Counsels of peace, however, 
were naturally just then not likely to prevail, and Welling- 
ton's victory a fortnight later falsified Lord John's fears. 
He did not speak again until February 1816, when, in 
seconding an amendment to the Address, he protested 
against the continuance of the income-tax as a calamity to 
the country. He pointed out that, although there had been 
repeated victories abroad, prosperity at home had vanished; 
that farmers could not pay their rents nor landlords their 
taxes ; and that everybody who was not paid out of the 
pubhc purse felt that prosperity was gone. A few weeks 
later he opposed the Army Estimates, contending that a stand- 
ing army of 150,000 men 'must alarm every friend of his 
country and its constitution.' 

It was probably owing in a measure to the hopelessness 
of the situation, but also partly to ill-health, that Lord John 
absented himself to a great extent from Parliament. He 
was, in truth, chagrined at the course of affairs and discou- 
raged with his own prospects, and in consequence he lapsed 
for a time into the position of a silent member of the House 
of Commons. Meanwhile, the summer of 18 16 was wet 
and cold and the harvest was in consequence a disastrous 
failure. Wheat rose to 1035'. a quarter, and bread riots 
broke out in the Eastern Counties. -The Luddites, who 
commenced breaking up machinery in manufacturing towns 
in 181 1, again committed great excesses. Tumults occurred 
in London, and the Prince Regent was insulted in the 
streets on his return from opening Parliament. 

The Liverpool Cabinet gave way to panic, and quickly 



PANIC-STRICKEN AUTHORITY 33 

resorted to extreme measures. A secret committee was 
appointed in each House to investigate the causes of the 
disaffection of a portion of his Majesty's subjects. Four 
bills were, as the result of their deliberations, swiftly intro- 
duced and passed through Parliament. The first enacted 
penalties for decoying sailors and soldiers ; the second was a 
pitiful exhibition of lack of confidence, for it aimed at 
special measures for the protection of the Prince Regent ; the 
third furnished magistrates with unusual powers for the pre- 
vention of seditious meetings ; and the fourth suspended the 
Habeas Corpus Act till July i, giving the Executive autho- 
rity 'to secure and detain such persons as his Majesty shall 
suspect are conspiring against his person and Government.' 
The measures of the Government filled Lord John 
with indignation, and he assailed the proposal to suspend 
the Habeas Corpus Act in a vigorous speech, which showed 
conclusively that his sympathies wei^e on the side of the 
weak and distressed classes of the community. ' I had 
not intended,' he said, 'to trouble the House with 
any observations of mine during the present session of 
ParHament. Indeed, the state of my health induced me to 
resolve upon quitting the fatiguing business of this House 
altogether. But he must have no ordinary mind whose at- 
tention is not roused in a singular manner when it is pro- 
posed to suspend the rights and Kberties of Englishmen, 
though even for a short period. I am determined, for my 
own part, that no weakness of frame, no indisposition of 
body, shall prevent my protesting against the most dangerous 
precedent which this House ever made. We talk much— 
I think, a great deal too much — of the wisdom of our 
ancestors. I wish we could imitate the courage of our 
ancestors. They w^ere not ready to lay their liberties at the 



34 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

foot of the Crown upon every vain or imaginary alarm.' 
He begged the majority not to give, by the adoption of 
a policy of coercion, the opponents of law and order the 
opportunity of saying, ' When we ask for redress you refuse 
all innovation ; when the Crown asks for protection you 
sanction a new code.' 

All protests, as usual, were thrown away, and the bill was 
passed. Lord John resumed his literary tasks, and as a 
matter of fact only once addressed the House in the course 
of the next two years. He repeatedly declared his intention 
of entirely giving up politics and devoting his time to litera- 
ture and travel. Many friends urged him to relinquish such 
an idea. Moore's poetical ' Remonstrance,' which gladdened 
Lord John not a little at the moment, is so well known that 
we need scarcely quote more than the closing lines : 

Thus gifted, thou never canst sleep in the shade ; 

If the stirring of genius, the music of fame. 
And the charm of thy cause have not power to persuade, 

Yet think how to freedom thou'rt pledged by thy name. 
Like the boughs of that laurel, by Delphi's decree 

Set apart for the fane and its service divine, 
All the branches that spring from the old Russell tree 

Are by Liberty claimed for the use of her shrine.' 

Lord John's literary labours began at this time to be 
considerable. He also enlarged his knowledge of the world 
by giving free play to his love of foreign travel. 

A general election occurred in the summer of 1818, and 
it proved that though the Tories were weakened they still 
had a majority. Lord John, with his uncle Lord William 
Russell, were, however, returned for Tavistock. Public affairs 
in 1819 were of a kind to draw him from his retirement, and 
as a matter of fact it was in that year that his speeches began 
to attract more than passing notice. He spoke briefly in 



FEELING HIS WAY 



35 



favour of reducing the number of the Lords of the Admiralty, 
advocated an inquiry into domestic and foreign policy, pro- 
tested against the surrender of the town of Parga, on the 
coast of Epirus, to the Turks, and made an energetic speech 
against the prevailing bribery and corruption which disgraced 
contested elections. The summer of that year was also 
rendered memorable in Lord John's career by his first speech 
on Parliamentary Reform. In July, Sir Francis Burdett, 
undeterred by previous overwhelming defeats, brought for- 
ward his usual sweeping motion demanding universal suffrage, 
equal electoral districts, vote by ballot, and annual Parlia- 
ments. Lord John's criticism was level-headed, and there- 
fore characteristic. He had little sympathy with extreme 
measures, and he knew, moreover, that it was not merely 
useless but injurious to the cause of Reform to urge them 
at such a moment. The opposition was too powerful and 
too impervious to anything in the nature of an idea to 
give such proposals just then the least chance of success. 
Property meant to fight hard for its privileges, and the 
great landowners looked upon their pocket-boroughs as a 
goodly heritage as well as a rightful appanage of rank and 
wealth. As for the great unrepresented towns, they were 
regarded as hot-beds of sedition, and therefore the people 
were to be kept in their place, and that meant without a 
voice in the affairs of the nation. The close corporations 
and the corrupt boroughs were meanwhile dismissed with a 
shrug of the shoulders or a laugh of scorn. 

Lord John was as yet by no means a full-fledged Re- 
former, but it was something in those days for a duke's 
son to take sides, even in a modified way, with the party 
of progress. His speech represented the views not so 
much of the multitude as of the middle classes. They 



D 2 



36 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

were alarmed at the truculent violence of mob orators up and 
down the country ; their fund of inherited reverence for the 
aristocracy was as yet scarcely diminished. They had their 
own dread of spoliation, and they had not quite recovered 
from their fright over the French Revolution. They were 
law abiding, moreover, and the blood and treasure which it 
had cost the nation to crush Napoleon had allayed in 
thousands of them the thirst for glory, and turned them into 
possibly humdrum but very sincere lovers of peace. Lord 
John's speech was an appeal to the average man in his 
strength and in his limitations, and men of cautious common- 
sense everywhere rejoiced that the young Whig — who was 
liked none the less by farmer and shopkeeper because 
he was a lord — had struck the nail exactly on the head. 
The growth of Lord John's influence in Parliament was 
watched at Woburn with keen interest. ' I have had a good 
deal of conversation,' wrote the Duke, 'with old Tierney 
at Cassiobury about you. ... I find with pleasure that he 
has a very high opinion of your debating powers ; and says, 
if you will stick to one branch of politics and not range 
over too desultory a field, you may become eminently useful 
and conspicuous in the House of Commons. . . . The line 
I should recommend for your selection would be that of 
foreign politics, and all home politics bearing on civil and 
religious liberty— a pretty wide range. . . .' 

As soon as the end of the session brought a respite 
from his Parliamentary duties Lord John started for the 
Continent with Moore the poet. The author of 'Lalla 
Rookh ' was at that moment struggling, after the manner of 
the majority of poets at any moment, with the three-headed 
monster pounds, shillings, and pence, through the failure of 
his deputy in an official appointment at Bermuda. The 



MADAME DURAZZO 37 

poet's journal contains many allusions to Lord John, and 
the following passage from it, dated September 4, 181 9, 
speaks for itself : — 'Set off with Lord John in his carriage 
at seven ; breakfasted and arrived at Dover to dinner at 
seven o'clock ; the journey very agreeable. Lord John mild 
and sensible ; took off Talma very well. Mentioned 
Buonaparte having instructed Talma in the part of Nero ; 
correcting him for being in such a bustle in giving his 
orders, and telling him they ought to be given calmly, 
as coming from a person used to sovereignty.^ After a 
fortnight in Paris the travellers went on to Milan, where 
they parted company, Moore going to Venice to visit 
Byron, and Lord John to Genoa, to renew a pleasant 
acquaintance with Madame Durazzo, an Italian lady of 
rank who was at one time well known in English society. 
Madame Durazzo was a quick-witted and accomplished 
woman, and her vivacious and sympathetic nature was 
hardly less remarkable than her personal charm. There is 
evidence enough that she made a considerable impression 
upon the young English statesman, who, indeed, wrote a 
sonnet about her. Lord John's verdict on Italy and the 
Italians is pithily expressed in a hitherto unpublished 
extract from his journal : — ' Italy is a delightful country for 
a traveller — every town full of the finest specimens of art, 
even now, and many marked by remains of antiquity near 
one another — all different. Easy travelling, books in 
plenty, living cheap and tolerably good — what can a man 
wish for but a little grace and good taste in dress amongst 
women ? Men of science abound in Italy — the Papal 
Government discouraged them at Rome ; but the country 

^ Memoirs^ Journal^ and Correspondence of Thomas Moore. Edited 
by the Right Hon. Lord John Russell, M.P. 



38 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

cannot be said to be behind the world in knowledge. 
Poets, too, are plenty ; I never read their verses.' 

Meanwhile, the condition of England was becoming 
critical. Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and other great 
towns were filled with angry discontent, and turbulent mass 
meetings of the people were held to protest against any 
further neglect of their just demands for political representa- 
tion. Major Cartwright advised these great unrepresented 
communities to ' send a petition in the form of a living man 
instead of one on parchment or paper,' so that he might 
state in unmistakable terms their demands to the Speaker. 
Sir Charles Wolseley, a Staffordshire baronet and a friend 
of Burdett, was elected with a great flourish of trumpets at 
Birmingham to act in this capacity, and Manchester deter- 
mined also to send a representative, and on August i6, 1819, 
a great open-air meeting was called to give effect to this 
resolution. The multitude were dispersed by the military, 
and readers of Bamford's ' Passages in the Life of a Radical ' 
will remember his graphic and detailed description of the 
scene of tumult and bloodshed which followed, and which 
is known as the Peterloo Massacre. The carnage inspired 
Shelley's magnificent ' Mask of Anarchy ' : — 

. . . One fled past, a maniac maid, 
And her name was Hope, she said : 
But she looked more like Despair, 
And she cried out in the air : 

' My father Time is weak and grey 
With waiting for a better day.' 

In those days Parliament did not sit in August, and the 
members of the Cabinet were not at hand when the crisis 
arose. The Prince Regent expressed his approbation of the 
conduct of the magistrates of Manchester as well as of that 



OIL AND VINEGAR 39 

of the officers and troops of the cavalry, whose firmness and 
effectual support of the civil power preserved the peace of 
the town. The Cabinet also lost no time in giving its em- 
phatic support to the high-handed action of the Lancashire 
magistrates, and Major Cartwright and other leaders of 
the popular movement became the heroes of the hour 
because the Liverpool Administration was foolish enough 
to turn them into political martyrs by prosecuting them 
on the charge of sedition. Lord John at this crisis 
received several letters urging his return home immediately. 
That his influence was already regarded as of some im- 
portance is evident from the terms in which Sir James 
Mackintosh addressed him. ' You are more wanted than any- 
body, not only for general service, but because your Reform 
must be immediately brought forward — if possible, as the 
act of the party, but at all events as the creed of all Whig 
Reformers.' Writing to Moore from Genoa on November 9, 
Lord John says : ' I am just setting off for London. 
Mackintosh has written me an oily letter, to which I have 
answered by a vinegar one ; but I want you to keep me up 
in acerbity.' 

Soon after Parliament met, the famous Six Acts — usually 
termed the ' Gagging Acts ' — were passed, though not with- 
out strenuous opposition. These measures were intended 
to hinder delay in the administration of justice in the case 
of misdemeanour, to prevent the training of persons to the 
use of arms, to enable magistrates to seize and detain arms, 
to prevent seditious meetings, and to bring to punishment 
the authors of blasphemous and seditious libels.^ No meeting 
of more than fifty people was to be held without six days' 
notice to a magistrate ; only freeholders or inhabitants were 
to be allowed even to attend ; and adjournments were for- 



40 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

bidden. The time and place of meeting were, if deemed 
advisable, to be changed by the local authorities, and no 
banners or flags were to be displayed. The wisdom of 
Lord Eldon, the patriotism of Lord Castlereagh, and the 
panic of Lord Sidmouth were responsible for these tyran- 
nical enactments. On December 14 Lord John brought 
forward his first resolutions in favour of Reform. He pro- 
posed (i) that all boroughs in which gross and notorious 
bribery and corruption should be proved to prevail should 
cease to return members to Parliament ; (2) that the right so 
taken away should be given to some great town or to the 
largest counties ; (3) that it is the duty of the House to con- 
sider of further means to detect and to prevent corruption 
in Parliamentary elections ; (4) that it is expedient that 
the borough of Grampound should be disfranchised. Even 
Castlereagh complimented him on the manner in which he 
had introduced the question, and undertook that, if Lord 
John would withdraw the resolutions and bring in a bill to 
disfranchise Grampound, he would not oppose the pro- 
position, and to this arrangement Lord John consented. 
Shortly before the dissolution of Parliament, consequent 
upon the death of the King, in January 1820, Lord John 
obtained leave to bring in a bill for suspending the issue of 
writs to the corrupt boroughs of Penryn, Camelford, Gram- 
pound, and Barnstaple. But the alarm occasioned by the 
Cato Street Conspiracy threw back the movement and 
awakened all the old prejudices against even the slightest 
concession. 

At the general election of 1820 Lord John was returned 
for the county of Huntingdon. As soon as possible Lord 
John returned to the charge, and brought forward his 
measure for dealing with Grampound and to transfer the 



THE 'FIRST GENTLEMAN OF EUROPE' 41 

right of voting to Leeds, the franchise to be given to 
occupiers of houses rated at 5/. and upwards. In 
his ' Recollections and Suggestions ' Lord John says : 
' With a view to work my way to a change, not by 
eloquence — for I had none — but by patient toil and a 
plain statement of facts, I brought before the House of 
Commons the case of Grampound. I obtained an inquiry, 
and, with the assistance of Mr. Charles Wynn, I forced the 
solicitors employed in bribery to reveal the secrets of their 
employers : the case was clear ; the borough was convicted.' 
Whilst the debate was proceeding Queen Caroline 
arrived in England from the Continent, and was received 
with much popular enthusiasm. Hostile measures were at 
once taken in the House of Commons against her, and 
though the despicable proceedings eventually came to 
nought, they effectually stopped all further discussion of the 
question of Reform for the time being. 

Like Canning and Brougham, Lord John took the side of 
the injured Queen, and he drew up a petition to George IV. 
begging him to end the further consideration of the Bill ot 
Pains and Penalties against Caroline by proroguing Parlia- 
ment. Such a request was entirely thrown away on a man of 
the character of George IV., for the King was bent on a policy 
of mean revenge ; and as only the honour of a woman was 
concerned, the ' first gentleman of Europe ' found the Liver- 
pool Administration obsequious enough to do his bidding. 
When at length public opinion prevailed and the proceedings 
against the Queen were withdrawn in November, and whilst 
rejoicings and illuminations were going on in London at the 
Queen's deliverance. Lord John went to Paris, remaining 
there till January. Moore was in Paris, and he was much 
in his company, and divided the rest of his time between 



42 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

literature and society. He wrote his now forgotten novel, 
'The Nun of Arrouca,' during the six weeks which he spent 
in Paris. A Frenchman, visiting the poet, ' lamented that 
his friend Lord John showed to so little advantage in 
society from his extreme taciturnity, and still more from 
his apparent coldness and indifference to what is said by 
others. Several here to whom he was introduced had been 
much disappointed in consequence of this manner.' 

Lady Blessington, who was at that time living abroad, 
states that Lord John pame and dined with herself and the 
Earl, and the comments of so beautiful and accomplished a 
woman of fashion are at least worthy of passing record. 
' Lord John was in better health and spirits than when I 
remember him in England. He is exceedingly well read, and 
has a quiet dash of humour, that renders his observations 
very amusing. When the reserve peculiar to him is thawed, 
he can be very agreeable. Good sense, a considerable power 
of discrimination, a highly cultivated mind, a great equality 
of temper, are the characteristics of Lord John Russell, and 
these peculiarly fit him for taking a distinguished part in 
public life.' Lady Blessington adds that the only obstacle, 
in her opinion, to Lord John's success lays in the natural 
reserve of his manners, which might lead people ' to think 
him cold and proud.' This is exactly what happened, and 
only those who knew Lord John intimately were aware of 
the delicate consideration for others which lurked beneath 
his somewhat frigid demeanour. 

Early in the year 1821 Lord John reintroduced his bill 
for the disfranchisement of Grampound. Several amend- 
ments were proposed, and one, brought forward by Mr. 
Stuart Wortley, limiting the right to vote to 20/. householders, 
was carried. Thereupon Lord John declined to take further 



HALF A LOAF OR NO BREAD 43 

charge of the measure. After being altered and pruned by 
both Houses the bill was passed, in spite of Lord Eldon, 
' with tears and doleful predictions,' urging the peers ' to resist 
this first turn of the helm towards the whirlpool of demo- 
cracy.' Grampound ceased to exist as a Parliamentary 
borough, and the county of York gained two members. 
Although Lord John supported the amended bill — on the 
principle that half a loaf is better than no bread — he at 
the same time announced that ' in a future session he pro- 
posed to call attention to the claims of large towns to send 
members to this House.' He was determined to do all 
in his power to deprive what he termed the ' dead bones 
of a former state of England ' of political influence, and to 
give representation to what he termed the ' living energy and 
industry of the England of the nineteenth century, with its 
steam-engines and its factories, its cotton and woollen cloths, 
its cutlery and its coal-mines, its wealth and its intelligence.' 
Whilst the bill about Grampound was being discussed 
by the Lords he took further action in this direction, and 
presented four resolutions for the discovery and punishment 
of bribery, the disfranchisement of corrupt boroughs, and the 
enfranchisement of wealthy and populous towns. On a 
division his proposals were defeated by thirty-one votes 
in a House of 279 members, and this, under all the circum- 
stances, was a better result than he expected. 

On April 25, 1822, Lord John again tested the feeling of 
Parliament with his motion ' that the present state of the 
representation requires serious consideration.' In the course 
of a speech of three hours he startled the House by pro- 
posing that 100 new members should be added, and, in order 
that the Commons should not be overcrowded, he added 
another resolution, to the effect that a similar number of 



44 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the small boroughs should be represented by one member 
instead of two. Mr. Canning opposed such a scheme, but 
complimented Lord John on the ability he had displayed in 
its advocacy, and then added : ' That the noble lord will 
carry his motion this evening I have no fear ; but with the 
talents which he has shown himself to possess, and with 
(I sincerely hope) a long and brilliant career of Parlia- 
mentary distinction before him, he will, no doubt, renew 
his efforts hereafter. If, however, he shall persevere, and if 
his perseverance shall be successful, and if the results of 
that success shall be such as I cannot help apprehending, 
his be the triumph to have precipitated those results, be 
mine the consolation that, to the utmost and to the latest 
of my power, I have opposed them.' ^ 

Little persuasion was necessary to win a hostile vote, and 
in a House of 433 members Lord John found himself in a 
minority of 164. Next year he renewed his attempt, but 
with the same result, and in 1826 he once more brought 
forward his proposals for Reform, to be defeated. Two 
months afterwards, however — May 26, 1826 — undaunted 
by his repeated failures, he brought in a bill for the discovery 
and suppression of bribery at elections. The forces arrayed 
against him again proved too formidable, and Lord John, 
deeming it useless to proceed, abandoned the bill. He 
made one more attempt in the expiring Parliament, in a 
series of resolutions, to arrest political corruption, and when 
the division was taken the numbers were equal, whereupon 
the Speaker recorded his vote on Lord John's side. In 
June the House was dissolved. 

The Whigs of the new generation were meanwhile 
dreaming of projects which had never entered into the cal- 
' Canning's Speeches. 



A WHIG OF THE NEW GENERATION 45 

culations of their predecessors. Lord John long afterwards 
gave expression to the views which were beginning to pre- 
vail, such as non-interference in the internal government of 
other nations, the necessity of peace with America and 
the acknowledgment of her Independence, the satisfaction 
of the people of Ireland by the concession of political 
equality, the advancement of religious liberty, parliamentary 
reform, and the unrestricted liberty of the press. ' Had 
these principles,' he declares, 'prevailed from 1770 to 1820, 
the country would have avoided the American War and the 
first French Revolutionary War, the rebellion in Ireland in 
1798, and the creation of three or four millions of national 
debt.' ^ Whenever opportunity allowed, Lord John sought in 
Parliament during the period under review to give practical 
effect to such convictions. He spoke in favour of the 
repeal of the Foreign Enlistment Bill, on the question of the 
evacuation of Spain by the French army, on the Alien Bill, 
on an inquiry into labourers' wages, on the Irish Insurrec- 
tion Bill, on Roman Catholic claims and Roman Catholic 
endowment, and on agricultural distress. 

During the closing years of George III.'s reign and the 
inglorious days of his successor, Lord John Russell rose 
slowly but steadily towards political influence and power. 
His speeches attracted growing attention, and his courage 
and common sense were rewarded with the deepening confi- 
dence of the nation. Although he was still regarded with 
some little dread by his ' betters and his elders,' to borrow 
his own phrase, the people hailed with satisfaction the rise 
of so honest, clear-headed, and dogged a champion of peace, 
retrenchment, and Reform. Court and Cabinet might look 
askance at the young statesman, but the great towns were 
1 Recollections and Suggestions^ p. 43. 



46 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

at his back, and he knew — in spite of all appearances to the 
contrary — that they, though yet unrepresented, were in reality 
stronger than all the forces of selfish privilege and senseless 
prejudice. Lord John had proved himself to be a man of 
action. The nation was beginning to dream that he would 
yet prove himself to be a man of mark. 



47 



CHAPTER III 

WINNING HIS SPURS 
1826-1830 

Defeated and out of harness— Journey to Italy — Back in Parliament 

Canning's accession to power— Bribery and corruption — The re- 
peal of the Test and Corporation Acts— The struggle between the 
Court and the Cabinet over Catholic Emancipation— Defeat of 
Wellington at the polls— Lord John appointed Paymaster-General. 

Whig optimists in the newspapers at the General Election of 
1826 declared that the future welfare of the country would 
depend much on the intelligence and independence of the 
new Parliament. Ordinary men accustomed to look facts 
in the face were not, however, so sanguine, and Albany 
Fonblanque expressed the more common view amongst 
Radicals when he asserted that if the national welfare turned 
on the exhibition in an unreformed House of Commons of 
such unparliamentary qualities as intelligence and indepen- 
dence, there would be ground not for hope but for despair. 
He added that he saw no shadow of a reason for supposing 
that one Parliament under the existing system would differ 
in any essential degree from another. He maintained that, 
while the sources of corruption continued to flow, legislation 
would roll on in the same course. 

Self-improvement was, in truth, the last thing to be ex- 
pected from a House of Commons which represented vested 
rights, and the interests and even the caprices of a few 



48 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

individuals, rather than the convictions or needs of the 
nation. The Tory party was stubborn and defiant even when 
the end of the Liverpool Administration was in sight. The 
Test Acts were unrepealed, prejudice and suspicion shut 
out the Catholics from the Legislature, and the sacred 
rights of property triumphed over the terrible wrongs of the 
slave. The barbarous enactments of the Criminal Code 
had not yet been entirely swept away, and the municipal 
corporations, even to contemporary eyes, appeared as 
nothing less than sinks of corruption. 

Lord John was defeated in Huntingdonshire, and, to his 
disappointment, found himself out of harness. He had hoped 
to bring in his Bribery Bill early in the session, and under 
the altered circumstances he persuaded Lord Althorp to press 
the measure forward. In a letter to that statesman which 
was afterwards printed, he states clearly the evils which 
he wished to remedy. A sentence or two will show 
the need of redress : ' A gentleman from London goes 
down to a borough of which he scarcely before knew the 
existence. The electors do not ask his political opinions ; 
they do not inquire into his private character ; they only 
require to be satisfied of the impurity of his intentions. If 
he is elected, no one, in all probability, contests the validity 
of his return. His opponents are as guilty as he is, and no 
other person will incur the expense of a petition for the 
sake of a public benefit. Fifteen days after the meeting of 
Parliament (this being the limit for the presentation of a 
petition), a handsome reward is distributed to each of the 
worthy and independent electors.' 

In the early autumn Lord John quitted England, with 
the intention of passing the winter in Italy. The Duke of 
Bedford felt that his son had struck the nail on the head 



A SARCASTIC APPEAL 49 

with his pithy and outspoken letter to Lord Althorp on 
poh'tical bribery, and he was not alone in thinking that Lord 
John ought not to throw away such an advantage by a pro- 
longed absence on the Continent. Lord William accordingly 
wrote to his brother to urge a speedy return, and the letter 
is worth quoting, since incidentally it throws light on another 
aspect of Lord John's character : ' If you feel any ambition 
— which you have not ; if you give up the charms of Genoa 
— which you cannot ; if you could renounce the dinners and 
tea-tables and gossips of Rome — which you cannot ; if you 
would cease to care about attending balls and assemblies, and 
dangling after ladies — which you cannot, there is a noble 
field of ambition and utility opened to a statesman. It is Ire- 
land, suffering, ill-used Ireland ! The gratitude of millions, 
the applause of the world, would attend the man who would 
rescue the poor country. The place is open, and must soon 
be filled up. Ireland cannot remain as she is. The Ministers 
feel it, and would gladly hsten to any man who would point 
out the way to relieve her. Undertake the task ; it is one 
of great difficulty, but let that be your encouragement. See 
the Pope's minister ; have his opinion on the Catholic 
question ; go to Ireland ; find out the causes of her 
suffering ; make yourself master of the subject. Set to work, 
as you did about Reform, by curing small evils at first. . . . 
I am pointing to the way for you to make your name im- 
mortal, by doing good to millions and to your country. 
But you will yawn over this, and go to some good dinner 
to be agreeable, the height of ambition with the present 
generation.' 

Meanwhile, through the influence of the Duke of Devon- 
shire, Lord John was elected in November for the Irish 
borough of Bandon Bridge, and in February, fresh from 

E 



50 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

prologue-writing for the private theatricals which Lord 
Normanby was giving that winter in Florence, he took his 
seat in the House of Commons. Lord Liverpool was struck 
down with paralysis on February i8, and it quickly became 
apparent that his case was hopeless. After a few weeks of 
suspense, which were filled with Cabinet intrigues, Mr. 
Canning received the King's commands to reconstruct the 
Ministry ; but this was more easily said than done. ' Lord 
Liverpool's disappearance from the political scene,' says 
Lord Russell, ' gave rise to a great debacle. The fragments 
of the old system rushed against each other, and for a time 
all was confusion.' Six of Canning's colleagues flatly re- 
fused to serve under him in the new Cabinet— Peel, Welling- 
ton, Eldon, Westmoreland, Bathurst, and Bexley — though 
the latter afterwards took advantage of his second thoughts 
and returned to the fold. Although an opponent of Parlia- 
mentary reform and of the removal of Nonconformist 
disabilities, Canning gave his support to Catholic eman- 
cipation, to the demand for free trade, and the abolition of 
slavery. Canning's accession to power threw the Tory 
ranks into confusion. ' The Tory party,' states Lord Russell, 
' which had survived the follies and disasters of the 
American war, which had borne the defeats and achieved 
the final glories of the French war, was broken by its 
separation from Mr. Canning into fragments, which could 
not easily be reunited.' 

Sydney Smith — who, by the way, had no love for Canning, 
and failed to a quite noteworthy extent to understand him — 
like the rest, took a gloomy view of the situation, which 
he summed up in his own inimitable fashion. ' Politics, 
domestic and foreign, are very discouraging ; Jesuits abroad, 
Turks in Greece, " No Poperists " in England ! A panting to 



CANNING IN POWER 5 1 

burn B ; B fuming to roast C ; C miserable that he can't 
reduce D to ashes ; and D consigning to eternal perdition 
the first three letters of the alphabet.' Canning's tenure 
of power was brief and uneasy. His opponents were many, 
his difficulties were great, and, to add to all, his health was 
failing. ' My position,' was his own confession, ' is not that 
of gratified ambition.' His Administration only lasted five 
months, for at the end of that period death out short the 
brilliant though erratic and disappointed career of a states- 
man of courage and capacity, who entered public life as a 
follower of Pitt, and refused in after years to pin his faith 
blindly to either political party, and so incurred the suspicions 
alike of uncompromising Whigs and unbending Tories. 

During the Canning Administration, Lord John's influ- 
ence in the House made itself felt, and always along pro- 
gressive lines. When the annual Indemnity Bill for Dis- 
senters came up for discussion, he, in answer to a taunt that 
the Whigs were making political capital out of the Catholic 
question, and at the same time neglecting the claims of the 
Nonconformists, declared that he was ready to move the 
repeal of restrictions upon the Dissenters as soon as they 
themselves were of opinion that the moment was ripe for 
action. This virtual challenge, as will be presently seen, 
was recognised by the Nonconformists as a call to arms. 
Mqanwhile cases of flagrant bribery at East Retford and 
Penryn — two notoriously corrupt boroughs — came before the 
House, and it was proposed to disenfranchise the former 
and to give in its place two members to Birmingham. The 
bill, however, did not get beyond its second reading. Lord 
John, nothing daunted, proposed in the session of 1828 
that Penryn should suffer disenfranchisement, and that Man- 
chester should take its place. This was ultimately carried 

E 2 



52 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

in the House of Commons ; but the Peers fought shy of 
Manchester, and preferred to ' amend ' the bill by widening 
the right of voting at Penryn to the adjacent Hundred. 
This refusal to take occasion by the hand and to gratify the 
political aspirations of the most important unrepresented 
town in the kingdom, did much to hasten the introduction 
of a wider scheme of reform. 

Power slipped for the moment on the death of Canning 
into the weak hands of Lord Goderich, who tried ineffectu- 
ally to keep together a Coalition Ministry. Lord John's 
best friends appear to have been apprehensive at this 
juncture lest the young statesman, in the general confusion 
of parties, should lapse into somewhat of a political Laodicean. 
' I feel a little anxious,' wrote Moore, ' to know exactly the 
colour of your politics just now, as from the rumours I hear 
of some of your brother " watchmen," Althorp, Milton, and 
the like, I begin sometimes to- apprehend that you too may 
be among the fallers off. Lord Lansdowne tells me, how- 
ever, you continue quite staunch, and for his sake I hope 
so.' But Lord John was not a ' faller off.' His eyes were 
fully open to the anomalous position in which he in common 
with other members of the party of reform had been placed 
under Canning and Goderich. Relief, however, came 
swiftly. Lord Goderich, after four months of feeble sem- 
blance of authority, resigned, finding it impossible to adjust 
differences. As a subaltern, declared one who had narrowly 
watched his career, Lord Goderich was respectable, but as 
a chief he proved himself to be despicable. The Duke of 
Wellington became Prime Minister, with a Tory Cabinet at 
his back, and with Peel as leader in the House of Commons. 
Thus the 'great debacle^' which commenced with Canning's 
accession to power — in spite of the presence in the Cabinet 



RELIGIOUS EQUALITY 53 

of Palmerston and Huskisson — drew to an end, and a line 
of cleavage was once more apparent between the Whigs and 
the Tories. With Wellington, Lord John had of course 
neither part nor lot, and when the Duke accepted office he 
promptly ranged himself in the opposite camp. 

Ireland was on the verge of rebellion when Wellington 
and Peel took office, and in the person of O'Connell it pos- 
sessed a leader of splendid eloquence and courage, who 
pressed the claims of the Roman Catholics for immediate 
relief from religious disabilities. Whilst the Government 
was deliberating upon the policy which they ought to pursue 
in presence of the stormy and menacing agitation which 
had arisen in Ireland, the Protestant Dissenters saw their 
opportunity, and rallied their forces into a powerful organi- 
sation for the total repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. 
Their cause had been quietly making way, through the 
Press and the platform, during the dark years for political 
and religious liberty which divide 1820 from 1828, and the 
Protestant Society had kept the question steadily before the 
public mind. Meanwhile that organisation had itself become 
a distinct force in the State. ' The leaders of the Whig 
party now formally identified themselves with it. In one 
year the Duke of Sussex took the chair ; in another Lord 
Holland occupied the same position ; Sir James Mackintosh 
delivered from its platform a defence of religious liberty, 
such as had scarcely been given to the English people since 
the time of Locke ; and Lord John Russell, boldly identi- 
fying himself and his party with the political interests of 
Dissenters, came forward as chairman in another year, 
to advocate the full civil and religious rights of the three 
millions who were now openly connected with one or other 
of the Free Churches. The period of the Revolution, when 



54 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Somers, Halifax, Burnet, and their associates laid the foun- 
dations of constitutional government, seemed to have 
returned.' ^ Immediately Parliament assembled, Lord John 
Russell — backed by many petitions from the Nonconformists 
— gave notice that on February 26 it was his intention to 
move the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. 

The Test Act compelled all persons holding any office 
of profit and trust under the Crown to take the oath of 
allegiance, to partake of the Sacrament according to the 
rites of the Church of England, and to subscribe the decla- 
ration against Transubstantiation. It was an evil legacy 
from the reign of Charles II., and became law in 1673. 
The Corporation Act was also placed on the statute-book in 
the same reign, and in point of time twelve years earlier — 
namely, in 166 1. It was a well-directed blow against the 
political ascendency of Nonconformists in the cities and 
towns. It required all public officials to take the Sacrament 
according to the rites of the Church of England, within 
twelve months of their appointment, and, whilst it excluded 
conscientious men, it proved no barrier to unprincipled hypo- 
crites. The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts had been 
mooted from time to time, but the forces of prejudice and 
apathy had hitherto proved invincible. Fox espoused the 
cause of the Dissenters in 1790, and moved for a committee 
of the whole House to deal with the question. He urged 
that men were to be judged not by their opinions, but by 
their actions, and he asserted that no one could charge the 
Dissenters with ideas or conduct dangerous to the State. 
Parliament, he further contended, had practically admitted 
the injustice of such disqualifications by passing annual Acts 

' History of t/ie Free Churches of England, pp. 457-458, by H. S, 
Skeats and C. S. Miall. 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE 55 

of Indemnity. He laid stress on the loyalty which the Dissen- 
ters had shown during the Jacobite risings of 17 15 and 1745, 
when the High Church party, which now resisted their just 
demands, had been ' hostile to the reigning family, and active 
in exciting tumults, insurrections, and rebelUons.' The 
authorfty of Pitt and the eloquence of Burke were put forth 
in opposition to the repeal of the Test Acts, and the panic 
awakened by the French Revolution threw Parliament into 
a reactionary mood, which rendered reform in any direction 
impossible. The result was that the question, so far as the 
House of Commons was concerned, was shirked from 1790 
until 1828, when Lord John Russell took up the advocacy 
of a cause in which, nearly forty years earlier, the genius of 
Charles James Fox had been unavaihngly enlisted. 

In moving the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 
Lord John recapitulated their history and advanced cogent 
arguments on behalf of the rights of conscience. It could 
not, he contended, be urged that these laws were necessary 
for the security of the Church, for they were not in force 
either in Scotland or in Ireland. The number and variety 
of offices embraced by the Test Act reduced the measure, 
so far as its practical working was concerned, to a palpable 
absurdity, as non-commissioned officers, as well as commis- 
sioned excisemen, tide-waiters, and even pedlars, were em- 
braced in its provisions. In theory, at least, the penalties 
incurred by these different classes of men were neither few 
nor slight — forfeiture of the office, disqualification for any 
other under Government, incapacity to maintain a suit at 
law, to act as guardian or executor, or to inherit a legacy, 
and even liability to a pecuniary penalty of 500/.! Of 
course, such ridiculous penalties were in most cases sus- 
pended, but the law which imposed them still disgraced 



56 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the statute-book, and was acknowledged by all unprejudiced 
persons to be indefensible. Besides, the most Holy Sacra- 
ment of the Christian Church was habitually reduced to a 
mere civil form imposed by Act of Parliament upon persons 
who either derided its solemn meaning or might be spiritu- 
ally unfit to receive it. Was it decent, asked Cowper in his 
famous ' Expostulation,' thus — 

To make the symbols of atoning grace 
An office-key, a pick-lock to a place ? 

To such a question, put in such a form, only one answer 
was possible. Under circumstances men took the Com- 
munion, declared Lord John, for the purpose of quali- 
fying for office, and with no other intent, and the least 
worthy were the most unscrupulous. ' Such are the conse- 
quences of mixing politics with religion. You embitter and 
aggravate political dissensions by the venom of theological 
disputes, and you profane religion with the vices of political 
ambition, making it both hateful to man and offensive to 
God.' 

Peel opposed the motion, and professed to regard the 
grievances of the Dissenters as more sentimental than real. 
Huskisson and Palmerston followed on the same side, 
whilst Althorp and Brougham lent their aid to the demand 
for religious liberty. The result of the division showed a 
majority of forty-four in favour of the motion, and the bill 
was accordingly brought in and read a second time without 
discussion. During the progress of the measure through 
the House of Lords, the two Archbishops — less fearful for 
the safety of the Established Church than some of their 
followers — met Lord John's motion for the repeal of the 
Acts in a liberal and enlightened manner. ' Religious 



THE RARITY OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY 57 

tests,' said Archbishop Harcourt of York, ' imposed for poH- 
tical purposes, must in themselves be always liable more or 
less to endanger religious sincerity.' Such an admission, of 
course, materially strengthened Lord John Russell's hands, 
and prepared the way for a speedy revision of the law. 
Many who had hitherto supported the Test Act began to 
see that such measures were, after all, a failure and a sham. 
If their terms were so lax that any man could subscribe to 
them with undisturbed conscience, then they ceased to be 
■ any test at all. On the contrary, if they were hard and rigid, 
then they forced men to the most odious form of dissimu- 
lation. A declaration, if required by the Crown, was there- 
fore substituted for the sacramental test, by which a person 
entering office pledged himself not to use its influence as a 
means for subverting the EstabHshed Church. On the 
motion of the Bishop of Llandaff, the words ' on the true 
faith of a Christian ' were inserted in the declaration — a 
clause which, by the way, had the effect, as Lord Holland 
perceived at the time, of excluding Jews from Parliament 
until the year 1858. 

Lord Winchilsea endeavoured by an amendment to shut 
out Unitarians from the relief thus afforded to conscience, 
but, happily, such an intolerant proceeding, even in an un- 
reformed Parliament, met with no success. Lord Eldon 
fiercely attacked the measure — 'like a lion,' as he said, ' but 
with his talons cut off' — but met with little support. It 
was felt that the great weight of authority as well as argu- 
ment was in favour of the liberal policy which Lord John 
Russell advocated, and hence, after a protracted debate, 
the cause of religious freedom triumphed, and on May 9, 
1828, the Test and Corporation Acts were finally repealed. 
A great and forward impulse was thus given to the cause of 



58 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



religious equality, and under the same energetic leadership 
the party of progress set themselves with fresh hope to 
invade other citadels of privilege. 

The victory came as a surprise not merely to Lord John 
but also to the Nonconformists. The fact that a Tory 
Government was in power was responsible for the widespread 
anticipation of a bitter and protracted struggle. Amongst 
the congratulations which Lord John received, none per- 
haps was more significant than Lord Grey's generous 
admission that ' he had done more than any man now 
living ' on behalf of liberty. ' I am a little anxious,' wrote 
Moore, 'to know that your glory has done you no harm 
in the way of health, as I see you are a pretty constant 
attendant on the House. There is nothing, I fear, worse for 
a man's constitution than to trouble himself too much 
about the constitution of Church and State. So pray 
let me have one line to say how you are.' ' My constitu- 
tion, wrote back Lord John, ' is not quite so much improved 
as the Constitution of the country by late events, but the 
joy of it will soon revive me. It is really a gratifying thing to 
force the enemy to give up his first line — that none but 
Churchmen are worthy to serve the State ; I trust we shall 
soon make him give up the second, that none but Protes- 
tants are.' 

Lord Eldon had predicted that Catholic Emancipation 
would follow on the heels of the repeal of the Test and 
Corporation Acts, and the event proved that he was right. 
The election of Daniel O'Connell for Clare had suddenly 
raised the question in an acute form. Although the followers 
of Canning had already left the Ministry, the Duke of 
Wellington and Peel found themselves powerless to quell 
the agitation which O'Connell and the Catholic Associa- 



CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 59 

tion had raised in Ireland by any means short of civil war. 
' What our Ministry will do,' wrote Lord John, ' Heaven 
only knows, but I cannot blame O'Connell for being a 
little impatient, after twenty-seven years of just expectation 
disappointed.' The allusion was, of course, to Pitt's 
scheme at the beginning of the century to enable Catholics 
to sit in Parliament and so to reconcile the Irish people to 
the Union — a generous project which was brought to nought 
by the obstinate attitude of George III. Lord John was 
meditating introducing a measure for Catholic Emancipation, 
when Peel took the wind from his sails. George IV., how- 
ever, supported by a majority of the Lords Spiritual and 
Temporal, was as stoutly opposed to concession as George III. 
Lord John Russell's words on this point are significant 
'George III.'s religious scruples, and even his personal 
prejudices, were respected by the nation, and formed real 
barriers so long as he did not himself waive them ; the 
religious scruples of George IV. did not meet with ready 
belief, nor did his personal dislikes inspire national respect 
nor obtain national acquiescence.' The struggle between 
the Court and the Cabinet was, however, of brief duration, 
and Wellington bore down the opposition of the Lords, and 
on April 13, 1829, the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill 
became law. 

In June the question of Parliamentary reform was 
brought before Parliament by Lord Blandford, but his resolu- 
tions — which were the outcome of Tory panic concerning 
the probable result of Roman Catholic Emancipation — met 
with little favour, either then or when they were renewed at 
the commencement of the session of 1830. Lord Blandford 
had in truth made himself conspicuous by his opposition to 
the Cathohc claims, and the nation distrusted the sudden 



6o LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

zeal of the heir to Blenheim in such a cause. On February 
23, 1830, Lord John Russell sought leave to bring in a bill 
for conferring the franchise upon Manchester, Birmingham, 
and Leeds, on the plea that they were the three largest 
unrepresented towns in the country. The moderate pro- 
posal was, however, rejected in a House of three hundred 
and twenty-eight members by a majority of forty-eight. 
Three months later Mr. O'Connell brought forward a 
motion for Triennial Parliaments, Universal Suffrage, and 
the adoption of the Ballot ; but this was rejected. But 
in a House of three hundred and thirty-two members, 
only thirteen were in favour of it, whilst an amendment by 
Lord John stating that it was ' expedient to extend the basis 
of the representation of the people ' was also rejected by a 
majority of ninety-six. On June 26 George IV. died, and 
a few weeks later Parliament was dissolved. At the 
General Election, Lord John stood for Bedford, and, 
much to his chagrin, was defeated by a single vote. After 
the declaration of the poll in August, he crossed over to 
Paris, where he prolonged his stay till November. The 
unconstitutional ordinances of July 25, 1830, had brought 
about a revolution, and Lord John Russell, who was 
intimate with the chief statesman concerned, was wishful 
to study the crisis on the spot, and in the recital of its 
dramatic incidents to find relief from his own political dis- 
appointment. 

During this visit he used his influence with General 
Lafayette for the life of Prince de Polignac, who was con- 
nected by marriage with a noble Enghsh family, and was 
about to be put on his trial. Lord John was intimately ac- 
quainted, not only with Lafayette, but with other leaders in 
the French political world, and his intercession, on which 



WELLINGTON'S PROTEST AGAINST REFORM 6l 

his friends in England placed much reliance, seems to have 
carried effectual weight, for the Prince's life was spared. 

With distress at home and revolution abroad, signs of 
the coming change made themselves felt at the General 
Election. Outside the pocket boroughs, the Ministerialists 
went almost everywhere to the wall, and 'not a single 
member of the Duke of Wellington's Cabinet obtained a 
seat in the new Parliament by anything approaching to free 
and open election.' ^ The first Parliament of William IV. 
met on October 26, and two or three days later, in the 
debate on the King's Speech, Wellington made his now 
historic statement in answer to Earl Grey, who resented 
the lack of reference to Reform : ' I am not prepared to 
bring forward any measure of the description alluded to 
by the noble lord. I am not only not prepared to bring 
forward any measure of this nature, but I will at once 
declare that, as far as I am concerned, as long as I hold any 
station in the government of the country, I shall always 
feel it my duty to resist such measures when proposed by 
others.' 

This statement produced a feeling of dismay even 
in the calm atmosphere of the House of Lords, and the 
Duke, noticing the scarcely suppressed excitement, turned to 
one of his colleagues and whispered : 'What can I have 
said which seems to have made so great a disturbance ? ' 
Quick came the dry retort of the candid friend : ' You have 
announced the fall of your Government, that is all.' The 
consternation was almost comic. ' Never was there an act 
of more egregious folly, or one so universally condemned,' 
says Charles Greville. ' I came to town last night (five days 
"after the Duke's speech), and found the town ringing with 
* The Three Refor/ns of Parliamenl, hyY^iWioxn. Heaton, chap. ii. p. 38. 



62 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



1 



his imprudence and everybody expecting that a few days 
would produce his resignation.' Within a fortnight the 
general expectation was fulfilled, for on November i6 
the Duke, making a pretext of an unexpected defeat over 
Sir H. Parnell's motion regarding the Civil List, threw up 
the sponge, and Lord Grey was sent for by the King and 
entrusted with the new Administration. The irony of the 
situation became complete when Lord Grey made it a 
stipulation to his acceptance of office that Parliamentary 
Reform should be a Cabinet measure. 

Lord John, meanwhile, was a candidate for Tavistock, 
and when the election was still in progress the new Premier 
offered him the comparatively unimportant post of Pay- 
master-General, and, though he might reasonably have ex- 
pected higher rank in the Government, he accepted the 
appointment. He was accustomed to assert that the actual 
duties of the Paymaster were performed by cashiers ; and 
he has left it on record that the only official act of any im- 
portance that he performed was the pleasant task of allotting 
garden-plots at Chelsea to seventy old soldiers, a boon 
which the pensioners highly appreciated. 



63 



CHAPTER IV 
A FIGHT FOR LIBERTY 

1830-1832 

Lord Grey and the cause of Reform — Lord Durham's share in the 
Reform Bill — The voice of the people — Lord John introduces the 
Bill and explains its provisions — The surprise of the Tories — 
' Reform, Aye or No ' — Lord John in the Cabinet — The Bill thrown 
out — The indignation of the country — Proposed creation of Peers 
— Wellington and Sidmouth in despair — The Bill carried — Lord 
John's tribute to Althorp. 

Earl Grey was a man of sixty-six when he was called to 
power, and during the whole of his public career he had 
been identified with the cause of Reform. He, more than 
any other man, was the founder, in 1792 — the year in which 
Lord John Russell was born — of ' The Friends of the People,' 
a political association which united the forces of the patriotic 
societies which just then were struggling into existence in 
various parts of the land. He was the foe of Pitt and the 
friend of Fox, and his official career began during the 
short-lived but glorious Administration of All the Talents. 
During the dreary quarter of a century which succeeded, 
when the destinies of England were committed to men of 
despotic calibre and narrow capacity like Sidmouth, Liver- 
pool, Eldon, and Castlereagh, he remained, through good 
and evil report, in deed as well as in name, a Friend of the 
People. As far back as 1793, he declared: 'I am more 



64 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

convinced than ever that a reform in Parhament might now 
be peaceably effected. I am afraid that we are not wise 
enough to profit by experience, and what has occasioned 
the ruin of other Governments will overthrow this — a perse- 
verance in abuse until the people, maddened by excessive 
injury and roused to a feeling of their own strength, will 
not stop within the limits of moderate reformation.' The 
conduct of Ministers during the dark period which followed 
the fall of the Ministry of All the Talents in 1807, was, in 
Grey's deliberate opinion, calculated to excite insurrection, 
since it was a policy of relentless coercion and repression. 

He made no secret of his conviction that the Government, 
by issuing proclamations in which whole classes of the com- 
munity were denounced as seditious, as well as by fulminating 
against insurrections that only existed in their own guilty 
imaginations, filled the minds of the people with false 
alarms, and taught every man to distrust if not to hate his 
neighbour. There was no more chance of Reform under the 
existing regime than of ' a thaw in Zembla,' to borrow a famous 
simile. Cobbett was right in his assertion that the measures 
and manners of George IV. 's reign did more to shake the 
long-settled ideas of the people in favour of monarchical 
government than anything which had happened since the 
days of Cromwell. The day of the King's funeral — it was 
early in July and beautifully fine — was marked, of course, by 
official signs of mourning, but the rank and file of the people 
rejoiced, and, according to a contemporary record, the 
merry-making and junketing in the villages round London 
recalled the scenes of an ordinary Whit Monday. 

On the whole, the nation accepted the accession of the 
Sailor King with equanimity, though scarcely with enthu- 
siasm, and for the moment it was not thought that the new 



LORD GREY AS LEADER 65 

reign would bring an immediate change of Ministry. The 
dull, uncompromising nonsense, however, which Wellington 
put into the King's lips in the Speech from the Throne at 
the beginning of November, threatening with punishment 
the seditious and disaffected, followed as it quickly was by 
the Duke's own statement in answer to Lord Grey, that no 
measure of Parliamentary reform should be proposed by 
the Government as long as he was responsible for its policy, 
awoke the storm which drove the Tories from power and 
compelled the King to send for Grey. The distress in thie 
country was universal — riots prevailed, rick-burning was 
common. Lord Grey's prediction of 1793 seemed about 
to^be fulfilled, for the people, 'maddened by excessive 
injury and roused to a feeling of their own strength,' seemed 
about to break the traces and to take the bit between their 
teeth. The deep and widespread confidence alike in the 
character and capacity of Lord Grey did more than any- 
thing else at that moment to calm the public mind and to 
turn wild clamour into quiet and resistless enthusiasm. 

Yet in certain respects Lord Grey was out of touch with 
the new spirit of the nation. If his own political ardour 
had not cooled, the lapse of years had not widened to any 
perceptible degree his vision of the issues at stake. He 
was a man of stately manners and fastidious tastes, and, 
though admirably qualified to hold the position of leader 
of the aristocratic Whigs, he had little in common with the 
toiling masses of the people. He was a conscientious and 
even chivalrous statesman, but he held himself too much 
aloof from the rank and file of his party, and thin-skinned 
Radicals were inclined to think him somewhat cold and even 
condescending. Lord Grey lacked the warm heart of Fox, 
and his speeches, in consequence, able and philosophic 

F 



66 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

though they were, were destitute of that unpremeditated 
and magical eloquence which led Grattan to describe Fox's 
oratory as 'rolling in, resistless as the waves of the 
Atlantic' On one memorable occasion — the second reading 
of the Reform Bill in the House of Lords — Lord Grey en- 
tirely escaped from such oratorical restraints, and even the 
Peers were moved to unwonted enthusiasm by the strong 
emotion which pervaded that singularly outspoken appeal. 

His son-in-law, Lord Durham, on the other hand, had 
the making of a great popular leader, in spite of his impe- 
rious manners and somewhat dictatorial bearing. The head 
of one of the oldest famihes in the North of England, 
Lord Durham entered the House of Commons in the year 
1813, at the age of twenty-one, as Mr. John George Lambton, 
and quickly distinguished himself by his advanced views on 
questions of foreign policy as well as Parliamentary reform. 
He married the daughter of Lord Grey in 1816, and gave 
his support in Parliament to Canning. On the formation of 
his father-in-law's Cabinet in 1830, he was appointed Lord 
Privy Seal. His popular sobriquet, ' Radical Jack,' itself 
attests the admiration of the populace, and when Lambton 
was raised to the peerage in 1828 he carried to the House 
of Lords the enthusiastic homage as well as the great ex- 
pectations of the crowd. Lord Durham was the idol of the 
Radicals, and his presence in the Grey Administration was 
justly regarded as a pledge of energetic action. 

He would unquestionably have had the honour of intro- 
ducing the Reform Bill in the House of Commons if he had 
still been a member of that assembly, for he had made the 
question peculiarly his own, and behind him lay the en- 
thusiasm of the entire party of Reform. Althorp, though 
leader of the House, and in spite of the confidence which 



THE COMMITTEE OF FOUR 6/ 

his character inspired, lacked the power of initiative and 
the ParUamentary courage necessary to steer the Ship of 
State through such rough waters. When Lord Grey pro- 
posed to entrust the measure to Lord John, Brougham 
pushed the claims of Althorp, and raised objections to Lord 
John on the ground that the young Paymaster-General was 
not in the Cabinet ; but Durham stoutly opposed him, and 
urged that Lord John had the first claim, since he had last 
been in possession of the question. 

An unpublished paper of Lord Durham's, in the pos- 
session of the present Earl, throws passing light on the 
action, at this juncture, of the Ministry, and therefore 
it may be well to quote it. 'Shortly after the forma- 
tion of the Government, Lord Grey asked me in the 
House of Lords if I would assist him in preparing the 
Reform Bill. I answered that I would do so with the 
greatest pleasure. He then said, " You can have no objec- 
tion to consult Lord John Russell ? " I replied, " Certainly 
not, but the reverse." ' In consequence of this conversa- 
tion, Lord Durham goes on to state, he placed himself in 
communication with Lord John, and they together agreed 
to summon to their councils Sir James Graham and Lord 
Duncannon. Thus the famous Committee of Four came 
into existence. Durham acted as chairman, and in that 
capacity signed the daily minutes of the proceedings. The 
meetings were held at his house in Cleveland Row, and he 
there received, on behalf of Lord Grey, the various deputa- 
tions from different parts of the kingdom which were flock- 
ing up to impress their views of the situation on the new 
Premier. Since the measure had of necessity to originate 
in the House of Commons, and Lord John, it was already 
settled, was to be its first spokesman, Lord Durham sug-. 

F 2 



68 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

gested that Russell should draw up a plan. This was done, 
and it was carefully discussed and amended in various direc- 
tions, and eventually the measure as finally agreed upon was 
submitted to Lord Grey, with a report which Lord Durham, 
as chairman, drew up, and which was signed not only by 
him but by his three colleagues. Lord Durham states, in 
speaking of the part he took as chairman of the Committee 
on Reform, that Lord Grey intrusted him with the prepara- 
tion in the first instance of the measure, and that he called 
to his aid the three other statesmen. He adds : ' This was 
no Cabinet secret, for it was necessarily known to hundreds. 
Lord Grey having referred to me all the memorials from 
different towns and bodies.' Lord Durham was in advance 
of his colleagues on this as upon most questions, for he took 
his stand on household suffrage, vote by ballot and triennial 
Parliaments, and if he could have carried his original draft 
of the Reform Bill that measure would have been far more 
revolutionary than that which became law. His proposals 
in the House of Commons in 1821 went, in fact, much 
further than the measure which became law under Lord 
Grey. 

Lord Grey announced in the Lords on February 3 that 
a Reform measure had been framed and would be introduced 
in the House of Commons on March i by Lord John 
Russell, who, ' having advocated the cause of Parliamentary 
Reform, with ability and perseverance, in days when it was 
not popular, ought, in the opinion of the Administration, to 
be selected, now that the cause was prosperous, to bring 
forward a measure of full and efficient Reform, instead of 
the partial measures he had hitherto proposed.' 

Petitions in favour of Reform from all parts of the 
kingdom poured into both Houses. The excitement in the 



LEADING THE ATTACK 69 

country rose steadily week by week, mingled with expres- 
sions of satisfaction that the Bill was to be committed to 
the charge of such able hands. In Parliament speculations 
were rife as to the scope of the measure, whilst rumours of 
dissension in the Cabinet flew around the clubs. Even as 
late as the middle of February, the Duke of Wellington 
went about predicting that the Reform question could not 
be carried, and that the Grey Administration could not 
stand. Ministers contrived to keep their secret uncommonly 
well, and when at length the eventful day, March i, arrived, 
the House of Commons was packed by a crowd such as had 
scarcely been seen there in its history. Troops of eager 
politicians came up from the country and waited at all the 
inlets of the House, whilst the leading supporters of the 
Whigs in London society gathered at dinner-parties, and 
anxiously awaited intelligence from Westminster. 

Lord John's speech began at six o'clock, and lasted for 
two hours and a quarter. Beginning in a low voice, he pro- 
ceeded gradually to unfold his measure, greeted in turns by 
cheers of approval and shouts of derision. Greville says 
it was ludicrous to see the faces of the members for those 
places doomed to disfranchisement, as they were severally 
announced. Wetherell, a typical Tory of the no-surrender 
school, began to take notes as the plan was unfolded, but 
after various contortions and grimaces he threw down his 
paper, with a look of mingled despair, ridicule, and horror. 
Lord Durham, seated under the gallery, doubted the reaUty 
of the scene passing before his eyes. ' They are mad, they 
are mad ! ' was one of the running comments to Lord John's 
statement. The Opposition, on the whole, seemed inclined 
to laugh out of court such extravagant proposals, but Peel, 
on the contrary, looked both grave and angry, for he saw 



70 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

further than most, and knew very well that boldness was the 
best chance. ' Burdett and I walked home together,' states 
Hobhouse, ' and agreed that there was very little chance of 
the measure being carried. We thought our friends in 
Westminster would oppose the ten-pound franchise.' 

' I rise, sir,' Lord John commenced, ' with feelings of 
the deepest anxiety to bring forward a question which, un- 
paralleled as it is in importance, is as unparalleled in points 
of difficulty. Nor is my anxiety, in approaching this 
question, lessened by reflecting that on former occasions I 
have brought this subject before the consideration of the 
House. For if, on other occasions, I have invited the 
attention of the House of Commons to this most important 
subject, it has been upon my own responsibility — unaided 
by anyone — and involving no one in the consequences of 
defeat . . . But the measure which I have now to bring 
forward, is a measure, not of mine but of the Government. 
... It is, therefore, with the greatest anxiety that I venture 
to explain their intentions to this House on a subject, the 
interest of which is shown by the crowded audience who 
have assembled here, but still more by the deep interest 
which is felt by millions out of this House, who look with 
anxiety, with hope, and with expectation, to the result of 
this day's debate.' 

In the course of his argument, setting forth the need of 
Reform, he alluded to the feelings of a foreigner, having 
heard of British wealth, civilisation, and renown, coming to 
England to examine our institutions. ' Would not such a 
foreigner be much astonished if he were taken to a green 
mound, and informed that it sent two members to the 
British Parliament ; if he were shown a stone wall, and told 
that it also sent two members to the British Parliament ; or, 



OLD SARUM VERSUS MANCHESTER 7 1 

if he walked into a park, without the vestige of a dwelHng, 
and was told that it, too, sent two members to the British 
Parliament ? But if he were surprised at this, how much 
more would he be astonished if he were carried into the 
North of England, where he would see large flourishing 
towns, full of trade, activity, and intelligence, vast magazines 
of wealth and manufactures, and were told that these places 
sent no representatives to Parliament. But his wonder 
would not end here ; he would be astonished if he were 
carried to such a place as Liverpool, and were there told 
that he might see a specimen of a popular election, what 
would be the result? He would see bribery employed in 
the most unblushing manner, he would see every voter 
receiving a number of guineas in a box as the price of his 
corruption ; and after such a spectacle would he not be 
indeed surprised that representatives so chosen could 
possibly perform the functions of legislators, or enjoy 
respect in any degree?' In speaking of the reasons for 
giving representatives to Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, 
and other large towns. Lord John argued : ' Because Old 
Sarum sent members to Parliament in the reign of Edward 
IIL, when it had a population to be benefited by it, the 
Government on the same principle deprived that forsaken 
place of the franchise in order to bestow the privilege 
where the population was now found. 

Lord John explained that by the provisions of the bill 
sixty boroughs with less than 2,000 inhabitants were to lose 
the franchise ; forty-seven boroughs, returning ninety-four 
members, were to lose one member each. Of the seats thus 
placed at the disposal of the Government eight were to be 
given to London, thirty-four to large towns, fifty-five to 
EngUsh counties, five to Scotland, three to Ireland, and one 



72 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

to Wales. The franchise was to be extended to inhabitants 
of houses rated at ten pounds a year, and to leaseholders 
and copyholders of counties. It was reckoned that about 
half a million persons would be enfranchised by the bill ; 
but the number of members in the House would be reduced, 
by sixty-two. Lord John laid significant stress on the' 
fact that they had come to the deliberate opinion that ' no 
half-measures would be sufficient, that no trifling, no 
paltry reform could give stability to the Crown, strength 
to the Parliament, or satisfaction to the country.' Long 
afterwards Lord John Russell declared that the measure 
when thus first placed before the House of Commons 
awoke feelings of astonishment mingled with joy or with 
consternation according to the temper of the hearers. 
' Some, perhaps many, thought that the measure was a pre- 
lude to civil war, which, in point of fact, it averted. But 
incredulity was the prevailing feeling, both among the 
moderate Whigs and the great mass of the Tories. The 
Radicals alone were delighted and triumphant. Joseph 
Hume, whom I met in the streets a day or two afterwards, as- 
sured me of his hearty support of the Government.' There 
were many Radicals, however, who thought that the measure 
scarcely went far enough, and one of them happily summed 
up the situation by saying that, although the Reform Bill 
did not give the people all they wanted, it broke up the old 
system and took the weapons from the hands of the enemies 
of progress. 

Night after night the debate proceeded, and it became 
plain that the Tories had been completely taken by surprise 
Meanwhile outside the House of Commons the people fol- 
lowed the debate with feverish interest. ' Nothing talked 
of, thought of, dreamt of but Reform,' wrote GreviUe. 



CAPITULATION OR BOMBARDMENT 73 

' Every creature one meets asks, " What is said now ? How 
will it go ? What is the last news ? What do you think ? " 
And so it is from morning till night, in the streets, in the 
clubs, and in private houses.' After a week of controversy, 
leave was given to bring in the bill. On March 21, 
Lord John moved the second reading, but was met by 
an amendment, that the Reform Bill be read a second 
time that day six months. The House divided at three 
o'clock on the morning of the 23rd, and the second reading 
was carried by a majority of one — 333-332 — in the fullest 
House on record. 'It is better to capitulate than to be 
taken by storm,' was the comment of one of the cynics of 
the hour. Illuminations took place all over the country. 
The people were good-humoured but determined, and the 
Opposition began to recover from its fright and to declare 
that the Government could not proceed with the measure 
and were certain to resign. Peel's action — and sometimes 
his lack of it — was severely criticised by many of his own 
followers, and not a few of the Tories, unable to forgive the 
surrender to the claims of the Catholics, met the new crisis 
in the time-honoured spirit of GalHo. They seemed to 
have thought not only that the country was fast going to 
the dogs, but that under all the circumstances, it did not 
much matter. 

Parliament met after the usual Easter recess, and on 
April 18 General Gascoigne moved as an instruction to the 
committee that the number of members of Parliament ought 
not to be diminished, and after a debate which lasted till 
four o'clock in the morning the resolution was carried in a 
House of 490 members by a majority of eight. The Go- 
vernment thus suddenly placed in a minority saw their oppor- 
tunity and took it. Lord Grey and his colleagues had begun 



74 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

to realise that it was impossible for them to carry the Reform 
Bill in the existing House of Commons without modifica- 
tions which would have robbed the boon of half its worth. 
The Tories had made a blunder in tactics over Gascoigne's 
motion, and their opponents took occasion by the forelock, 
with the result that, after an extraordinary scene in the Lords! 
Parliament was suddenly dissolved by the King in person! 
Brougham had given the people their cry, and ' the bill, 
the whole bill, and nothing but the bill,' was the popular 
watchword during the tumult of the General Election. On 
the dissolution of Parliament the Lord Mayor sanctioned 
the illumination of London, and an angry mob, forgetful of 
the soldier in the statesman, broke the windows of Apsley 
House. 

Speaking at a political meeting two days after the dissolu- 
tion, Lord John Russell said that the electors in the approach- 
hing struggle were called on not merely to select the best 
men to defend their rights and interests, but also to give a 
phin answer to the question, put to the constituencies by the 
King in dissolving Parliament, Do you approve, aye or no, of 
the principle of Reform in the representation ? Right through 
the length and breadth of the kingdom his words were caught 
up, and from hundreds of platforms came the question, ' Re- 
form : Aye or No ? ' and the response in favour of the measure 
was emphatic and overwhelming. The country was split into 
the opposing camps of the Reformers and anti-Reformers, 
and every other question was thrust aside in the struggle. 
The political unions proved themselves to be a power in 
the land, and the operatives and artisans of the great manu- 
facturing centres, though still excluded from citizenship, left 
no stone unturned to ensure the popular triumph. Lord 
John was pressed to stand both for Lancashire and Devon- 



THE FLOWING TIDE 75 

shire ; he chose the latter county, with which he was closely 
associated by family traditions as well as by personal friend- 
ships, and was triumphantly returned, with Lord Ebrington as 
colleague. Even in the agricultural districts the ascendency 
of the old landed families was powerless to arrest the move- 
ment, and as the results of the elections became known it was 
seen that Lord Sefton had caught the situation in his dry 
remark : ' The county members are tumbling about like 
ninepins.' Parliament assembled in June, and it became plain 
at a glance that democratic ideas were working like leaven 
upon public opinion in England. In spite of rotten boroughs, 
close corporations, the opposition of the majority of the 
territorial aristocracy, and the panic of thousands of timid 
people, who imagined that the British Constitution was im- 
perilled, the Reformers came back in strength, and at least 
a hundred who had fought the Bill in the late Parliament 
were shut out from a renewal of the struggle, whilst out of 
eighty-two county members that were returned, only six 
were hostile to Reform. 

On June 24, Lord John Russell, now raised to Cabinet 
rank, introduced the Second Reform Bill, which was sub- 
stantially the same as the first, and the measure was carried 
rapidly through its prehminary stage, and on July 8 it passed 
the second reading by a majority of 136. The Government, 
however, in Committee was met night after night by an irri- 
tating cross-fire of criticism ; repeated motions for adjourn- 
ment were made ; there was a systematic division of labour in 
the task of obstruction. In order to promote delay, the 
leaders of the Opposition stood up again and again and 
repeated the same statements and arguments, and often in 
almost the same words. ' If Mr. Speaker,' wrote Jekyll, 
' outlives the Reform debate, he may defy la grippe and 



y6 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the cholera. I can recommend no books, for the book- 
sellers declare nobody reads or buys in the present fever. 
The newspapers are furious, the Sunday papers are talking 
treason by wholesale. . . . Peel does all he can to make his 
friends behave like gentlemen. But the nightly vulgarities of 
the House of Commons furnish new reasons for Reform, and 
not a ray of talent glimmers among them all. Double-dis- 
tilled stupidity ! ' ^ In the midst of it all Russell fell ill, 
worn out with fatigue and excitement, and as the summer 
slipped past the people became alarmed and indignant at 
the dead-lock, and in various parts of the kingdom the 
attitude of the masses grew not merely restless but menacing. 
At length the tactics of the Opposition were exhausted, and 
it was possible to report progress. 'On September 7,' is 
Lord John's statement, 'the debate was closed, and after 
much labour, and considerable sacrifice of health, I was 
able on that night to propose, amid much cheering, that 
the bill should be reported to the House.' The third 
reading was carried on September 19 by a majority of 
fifty-five. Three days later, at five in the morning on 
September 22, the question was at length put, and in a 
House of five hundred and eighty-one members the majority 
for Ministers was one hundred and nine. 

The bill was promptly sent up to the Peers, and Lord Grey 
proposed the second reading on October 3 in a speech of 
sustained eloquence. Lord Grey spoke as if he felt the 
occasion to be the most critical event in a political career 
which had extended to nearly half a century. He struck 
at once the right key-note, the gravity of the situation, the 



' Correspondence of Mr. Joseph Jekylly 1818-1838. Edited, with a 
brief Memoir, by the Hon. Algernon Bourke. Pp. 272-273. 



LORD GREY ARISES TO THE OCCASION 77 

magnitude of the issues involved, the welfare of the nation. 
He made a modest but dignified allusion to his own life-long 
association with the question. 'In 1786 I voted for Reform. 
I supported Mr. Pitt in his motion for shortening the duration 
of Parliaments. I gave my best assistance to the measure of 
Reform introduced by Mr. Flood before the French Revo- 
lution.^ On one or two occasions I originated motions on 
the subject.' Then he turned abruptly from his own per- 
sonal association with the subject to what he finely termed 
the ' mighty interests of the State,' and the course which 
Ministers felt they must take if they were to meet the demands 
of justice, and not to imperil the safety of the nation. 
He laid stress on the general discontent which prevailed, on 
the political agitation of the last twelve months, on the dis- 
tress that reigned in the manufacturing districts, on the 
influence of the numerous political associations which had 
grown powerful because of that distress, on the suffering of the 
agricultural population, on the ' nightly alarms, burnings, and 
popular disturbances,' as well as on the 'general feeling of 
doubt and apprehension observable in every countenance.' 
He endeavoured to show that the measure was not revolu- 
tionary in spirit or subversive of the British Constitution, 
as many people proclaimed. 

Lord Grey contended that there was nothing in the 
measure that was not founded on the principles of English 
government, nothing that was not perfectly consistent with the 
ancient practices of the Constitution, and nothing that might 
not be adopted with absolute safety to the rights and privi- 
leges of all orders of the State. He made a scathing allusion 

^ Flood's Reform proposals were made in 1790. His idea was to 
augment the House of Commons by one hundred members, to be elected 
by the resident householders of every county. 



yS LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

to the ' gross and scandalous corruption practised without 
disguise ' at elections, and he declared that the sale of seats 
in the House of Commons was a matter of equal notoriety 
with the return of nominees of noble and wealthy persons to 
that House. He laid stress on the fact that a few individuals 
under the existing system were able to turn into a means 
of personal profit privileges which had been conferred in 
past centuries for the benefit of the nation. ' It is with 
these views that the Government has considered that the 
boroughs which are called nomination boroughs ought to be 
abolished. In looking at these boroughs, we found that 
some of them were incapable of correction, for it is impos- 
sible to extend their constituency. Some of them consisted 
only of the sites of ancient boroughs, which, however, 
might perhaps in former times have been very fit places to 
return members to Parliament ; in others, the constituency 
was insignificantly small, and from their local situation 
incapable of receiving any increase ; so that, upon the 
whole, this gangrene of our representative system bade 
■defiance to all remedies but that of excision,' 

After several nights' debate, in which Brougham, accord- 
ing to Lord John, delivered one of the greatest speeches ever 
heard in the House of Lords, the bill was at length rejected, 
after an all-night sitting, at twenty minutes past six o'clock 
on Saturday morning, October 8, by a majority of forty-one 
(199 to 158), in which majority were twenty-one bishops. 
Had these prelates voted the other way, the bill would have 
passed the second reading. As the carriages of the nobility 
rattled through the streets at daybreak, artisans and labourers 
trudging to their work learnt with indignation that the 
demands of the people had been treated with characteristic 
contempt by the Peers. 



THE NATION GROWS INDIGNANT 79 

The next few days were full of wild excitement. The 
people were exasperated, and their attitude grew suddenly 
menacing. Even those who had hitherto remained calm 
and almost apathetic grew indignant. Wild threats prevailed, 
and it seemed as if there might be at any moment a general 
outbreak of violence. Even as it was, riots of the most dis- 
quieting kind took place at Bristol, Derby, and other places. 
Nottingham Castle was burnt down by an infuriated mob ; 
newspapers appeared in mourning ; the bells of some of the 
churches rang muffled peals ; the Marquis of Londonderry 
and other Peers who had made themselves peculiarly ob- 
noxious were assaulted in the streets ; and the Bishops could 
not stir abroad without being followed by the jeers and exe- 
crations of the multitude. Quiet middle-class people talked 
of refusing to pay the taxes, and showed unmistakably that 
they had caught the revolutionary spirit of the hour. Bir- 
mingham, which was the head-quarters of the Political Union, 
held a vast open-air meeting, at which one hundred and fifty 
thousand people were present, and resolutions were passed, 
beseeching the King to create as many new Peers as might 
be necessary to ensure the triumph of Reform. Lord 
Althorp and Lord John Russell were publicly thanked at 
this gathering for their action, and the reply of the latter is 
historic : ' Our prospects are obscured for a moment, but, I 
trust, only for a moment ; it is impossible that the whisper 
of a faction should prevail against the voice of a nation.' 

Meanwhile Lord Ebrington, Lord John's colleague in 
the representation of Devonshire, came to the rescue of the 
Government with a vote of confidence, which was carried by 
a sweeping majority. Two days later, on Wednesday, October 
12, many of the shops of the metropolis were closed in token 
of political mourning, and on that day sixty thousand men 



8o LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

marched in procession to St. James's Palace, bearing a petition 
to the King in favour of the retention of the Grey Administra- 
tion. Hume presented it, and when he returned to the wait- 
ing crowd in the Park, he was able to tell them that their prayer 
would not pass unheeded. No wonder that Croker wrote 
shortly afterwards : ' The four M's— the Monarch, the Ministry, 
the Members, and the Multitude — all against us. The Kmg 
stands on his Government, the Government on the House 
of Commons, the House of Commons on the people. How 
can we attack a line thus linked and supported ? ' Indigna- 
tion meetings were held in all parts of the country, and at 
one of them, held at Taunton, Sydney Smith delivered the 
famous speech in which he compared the attempt of the 
House of Lords to restrain the rising tide of Democracy to 
the frantic but futile battle which Dame Partington waged 
with her mop, during a storm at Sidmouth, when the At- 
lantic invaded her threshold. ' The Atlantic was roused. 
Mrs. Partington's spirit was up. But I need not tell you 
that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat 
Mrs. Partington. Gentlemen, be at your ease, be quiet and 
steady ; you will beat — Mrs. Partington.' The newspapers 
carried the witty allusion everywhere. It tickled the public 
fancy, and did much to relax the bitter mood of the nation, 
and vapouring heroics were forgotten in laughter, and indig- 
nation gave way to amused contempt. 

Parliament, which had been prorogued towards the end 
of October, reassembled in the first week of December, and 
on the 1 2th of that month Lord John once more introduced 
— for the third time in twelve months — the Reform Bill. 
A few alterations had been made in its text, the outcome 
chiefly of the facts which the new census had brought to 
light. In order to meet certain anomalies in the original 



LORD ALTHORP'S TACT 8 1 

scheme, Ministers, with the help of Thomas Drummond, who 
shortly afterwards honourably distinguished himself in Irish 
affairs, drew up two lists of boroughs, one for total disen- 
franchisement and the other for semi-disenfranchisement ; 
and the principle on which fifty-six towns were included in 
the first list, and thirty in the second, was determined by 
the number of houses in each borough and the value of the 
assessed taxes. Six days later the second reading was 
passed, after three nights' discussion, by a majority of 324 to 
162. The House rose immediately for the Christmas recess-, 
and on January 20 the bill reached the committee stage, 
and there it remained till March 14. The third reading took 
place on March 23, and the bill was passed by a majority 
of 1 16, Althorp, as the leader of the Commons, and Russell, 
as the Minister in charge of the measure, carried the Reform 
Bill promptly to the House of Lords, and made formal 
request for the ' concurrence of their lordships to the same. 
Other men had laboured to bring about this result ; but the 
nation felt that, but for the pluck and persistency of Russell, 
and the judgment and tact of Althorp, failure would have 
attended their efforts. 

It is difficult now to understand the secret of the influence 
which Althorp wielded in the Grey Administration, but it was 
great enough to lead the Premier to ask him to accept a peer- 
age, in order — in the crisis which was now at hand — to bring 
the Lords to their senses. Althorp was in no sense of the 
word a great statesman ; in fact, his career was the triumph 
of character rather than capacity. All through the struggle, 
when controversy grew furious and passion rose high, Althorp 
kept a cool head, and his adroitness in concihatory speech was 
remarkable. He was a moderate man, who never failed to do 
justice to his opponent's case, and his influence was not merely 

G 



S2 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

in the Commons ; it made itself felt to good purpose in the 
Court, as well as in the country. He was a man of chivalrous 
instincts and unchallenged probity. It was one of his poli- 
tical opponents, Sir Henry Hardinge, who exclaimed, 
' Althorp carried the bill. His fine temper did it ! ' 

Lord John Russell, like his colleagues, was fully alive to 
the gravity of the crisis. He made no secret of his con- 
viction that, if another deadlock arose, the consequence 
would be bloodshed, and the outbreak of a conflict in which 
the British Constitution would probably perish. Twelve 
months before, the cry in the country had been, ' What will 
the Lords do?' but now an altogether difl'erent question 
was on men's lips, ' What must be done with the Lords ? ' 
Government knew that the real struggle over the bill would 
be in Committee, and therefore they refused to be unduly 
elated when the second reading was carried on April 14 
with a majority of nine, in spite of the Duke of Wellington's 
blustering heroics. Three weeks later. Lord Lyndhurst 
carried, by a majority of thirty-five, a motion for the mutila- 
tion of the bill, in spite of Lord Grey's assurance that it 
dealt a fatal blow at the measure. The Premier immedi- 
ately moved the adjournment of the debate, and the situa- 
tion grew suddenly dramatic. The Cabinet had made its 
last concession ; Ministers determined, in Lord Durham's 
words, that a ' sufficient creation of Peers was absolutely 
necessary ' if their resignation was not to take immediate 
effect, and they laid their views before the King. William 
IV., like his predecessor, lived in a narrow world ; he was sur- 
rounded by gossips who played upon his fears of revolution, 
and took care to appeal to his prejudices. His zeal for 
Reform had already cooled, and Queen Adelaide was hostile 
to Lord Grey's measure. 



THE FIERCE CRY OF THE STREETS 83 

When, therefore, Lord Grey and Lord Brougham went 
down to Windsor to urge the creation of new Peers, they 
met with a chilling reception. The King refused his 
sanction, and the Ministry had no other alternative than to 
resign. William IV. took counsel with Lord Lyndhurst, 
and summoned the Duke of Wellington. Meanwhile the 
House of Commons at the instance of Lord Ebrington, 
again passed a vote of confidence in the Grey Administration, 
and adopted an address to His Majesty, begging him to call 
to his councils such persons only as ' will carry into eifect 
unimpaired in all its essential provisions that bill for reform- 
ing the representation of the people which has recently 
passed the House of Commons.' Wellington tried to form 
a Ministry in order to carry out some emasculated scheme 
of Reform, but Peel was inexorable, and refused to have 
part or lot in the project. 

Meanwhile the cry rang through the country, ' The bill, 
the whole bill, and nothing but the bill ! ' William IV. was 
hissed as he passed through the streets, and the walls blazed 
with insulting lampoons and caricatures. Signboards which 
displayed the King's portrait were framed with crape, and 
Queen Adelaide's likeness was disfigured with lamp- 
black. Rumours of projected riots filled the town, and 
whispers of a plot for seizing the wives and children of the 
aristocracy led the authorities to order the swords of the 
Scots Greys to be rough-sharpened. At the last moment, 
when the attitude of the country was menacing, the King 
yielded, on May 17, and sent for Lord Grey. ' Only think,' 
wrote Joseph Parkes on May 18, 'that at three yesterday 
all was gloomy foreboding in the Cabinet, and at twenty- 
five minutes before five last night Lord Althorp did not know 
the King's answer till Lord Grey returned at half- past five — 

G 2 



84 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

" All right." Thus on the decision of one manrests the fate 
of nations.' ^ 

Instead of creating new Peers, the King addressed a letter 
to members of the House of Lords who were hostile to the 
bill, urging them to withdraw their opposition. A hint from 
Windsor went further with the aristocracy in those days than 
any number of appeals, reasonable or just, from the country. 
About a hundred of the Peers, in angry sullen mood, shook 
off the dust of Westminster, and, in Lord John's words, 
' skulked in clubs and country houses.' Sindbad, to borrow 
Albany Fonblanque's vigorous simile, was getting rid of the 
old man of the sea, not permanently, alas ! but at least for 
the occasion. During the progress of these negotiations, the 
nation, now confident of victory, stood not merely at atten- 
tion but on the alert. ' I say,' exclaimed Attwood at 
Birmingham — and the phrase expressed the situation — ' the 
people of England stand at this moment like greyhounds on 
the slip ! ' Triumph was only a matter of time. ' Pray beg 
of Lord Grey to keep well,' wrote Sydney Smith to the 
Countess ; ' I have no doubt of a favourable issue. I see an 
open sea beyond the icebergs.' At length the open sea was 
reached, and on June 7 the Reform Bill received the Royal 
Assent and became the law of the land, and with it the era 
of government by public opinion began. The mode by 
which the country at last obtained this great measure of 
redress did not commend itself to Lord John's judgment. 
He did not disguise his opinion that the creation of many 
new Peers favourable to Reform would have been a more 
dignified proceeding than the request from Windsor to noble 
lords to dissemble and cloak their disappointment. ' Whether 
twelve or one hundred be the number requisite to enable 
^ Life of George Gi'ote, by Mrs. Grote, p. 80,' 



BOWING BEFORE THE STORM 85 

the Peers to give their votes in conformity with pubHc 
opinion,' were his words, ' it seems to me that the House of 
Lords, sympathising with the people at large, and acting 
in concurrence with the enlightened state of the prevailing 
wish, represents far better the dignity of the House, and its 
share in legislation, than a majority got together by the long 
supremacy of one party in the State, eager to show its ill-will 
by rejecting bills of small importance, but afraid to appear, 
and skulking, in clubs and country houses, in face of a 
measure which has attracted the ardent sympathy of public 
opinion,' 

'God may and, I hope, will forgive you for this bill,' 
was Lord Sidmouth's plaintive lament to Earl Grey, ' but I 
do not think I ever can ! ' There lives no record of reply. 
The last protest of the Duke of Wellington, delivered just 
before the measure became law, was characteristic in many 
respects, and not least in its blunt honesty. ' Reform, my 
lords, has triumphed, the barriers of the Constitution are 
broken down, the waters of destruction have burst the gates 
of the temple, and the tempest begins to howl. Who can 
say where its course should stop ? who can stay its speed ? 
For my own part, I earnestly hope that my predictions may 
not be fulfilled, and that my country may not be ruined by 
the measure which the noble earl and his colleagues have 
sanctioned.' Lord John Russell, on the contrary, held then 
the view which he afterwards expressed : ' It is the right of 
a people to represent its grievances : it is the business of a 
statesman to devise remedies.' In the first quarter of the 
present century the people made their grievances known. 
Lord Grey and his Cabinet in 1831-2 devised remedies, and, 
in Lord John's memorable phrase, ' popular enthusiasm rose 
in its strength and converted them into law.' 



S6 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

/ 
The Reform Bill, as Walter Bagehot has shown, did 

nothing to remove the worst evils from which the nation 

suffered, for the simple reason that those evils were not 

political but economical. But if it left unchallenged the 

reign of protection and much else in the way of palpable 

and glaring injustice, it ushered in a new temper in regard 

to public questions. It recognised the new conditions of 

English society, and gave the mercantile and manufacturing 

classes, with their^wealth, intelligence, and energy, not only 

the consciousness of power, but the sense of responsibility. 

The political struggle under Pitt had been between 

the aristocracy and the monarchy, but that under Grey 

was between the aristocracy and the middle classes, for 

the claims of the democracy in the broad sense of the 

word lay outside the scope of the measure. In spite of its 

halting confidence in the people, men felt that former things 

of harsh oppression had passed away, and that the Reform 

Bill rendered their return impossible. It was at best only 

a half measure, but it broke the old exclusive traditions and 

diminished to a remarkable degree the power of the landed 

interest in Parliament. It has been said that it was the 

business of Lord John Russell at that crisis to save England 

from copying the example of the French Revolution, and 

there can be no doubt whatever that the measure was a 

safety-valve at a moment when political excitement assumed 

a menacing form. The public rejoicings were inspired 

as much by hope as by gladness. A new era had dawned, 

the will of the nation had prevailed, the spirit of progress 

was abroad, and the multitudes knew that other reforms 

less showy perhaps but not less substantial, were at hand. 

' Look at England before the Reform Bill, and look at it 

now,' wrote Mr. Froude in in 1874. 'Its population 



A GENEROUS TRIBUTE 87 

almost doubled ; its commerce quadrupled ; every in- 
dividual in the kingdom lifted to k high level of comfort 
and intelligence — the speed quickening every year ; the 
advance so enormous, the increase so splendid, that language 
turns to rhetoric in describing it.' When due allowance is 
made for the rhetoric of such a description — for alas ! the 
' high level of comfort ' for every individual in the kingdom 
is still unattained — the substantial truth of such a statement 
cannot be gainsaid. When the battle was fought, Lord 
John was generous enough to say that the success of the 
Reform Bill in the House of Commons was due mainly to 
the confidence felt in the integrity and sound judgment of 
Lord Althorp. At the same time he never concealed his 
conviction that it was the multitude outside who made the 
measure resistless. 



88 LORD TORN RUSSELL 



CHAPTER V 

THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA 

1833-I838 

The turn of the tide with the Whigs — The two voices'in the Cabinet- 
Lord John and Ireland — Althorp and the Poor Law — ^The Mel- 
bourne Administration on the rocks — Peel in power — The question 
of Irish tithes — Marriage of Lord John — Grievances of Noncon- 
formists—Lord Melbourne's influence over tlie Queen — Lord 
Durham's mission to Canada — Personal sorrow. 

High-water mark was reached with the Whigs in the spring 
of 1833, and before the tide turned, two years later, Lord 
Grey and his colleagues had, in various directions, done 
much to justify the hopes of their followers. The result of 
the General Election in the previous December was seen 
when the first Reformed Parliament assembled at West- 
minster, on January 29, 1833. Lord Althorp, as Leader of 
the House of Commons, found himself with 485 members 
at his back, whilst Sir Robert Peel confronted him with 
about 170 stalwart Tories. After all, the disparity was 
hardly as great as it looked, for it was a mixed multitude 
which followed Althorp, and in its ranks were the elements 
of conflict and even of revolt. The Whigs had made common 
cause with the Radicals when the Reform Bill stood in 
jeopardy every hour, ^but the triumph of the measure 
imperilled this grand alliance. Not a few of the Whigs had 
been faint-hearted during the struggle, and were now some- 



REMEDIAL MEASURES 89 

what alarmed at its overwhelming success. Their inclination 
was either to rest on their laurels or to make haste slowly. 
The Radicals, on the contrary, longed for new worlds to 
conquer. They were full of energy and enthusiasm, and 
desired nothing so much as to ride abroad redressing human 
wrongs. The traditions of the past were dear to the Whigs, 
but the Radicals thrust such considerations impatiently 
aside, and boasted that 1832 was the Year i of the people. 
It was impossible that such warring elements should perma- 
nently coalesce ; the marvel is that they held together so 
long. 

Even in the Cabinet there were two voices. The Duke 
of Richmond was at heart a Tory masquerading in the 
dress of a Whig. Lord Durham was a Radical of an out- 
spoken and uncompromising type, in spite of his aristocratic 
trappings and his great possessions. Nevertheless, the new 
era opened, not merely with a flourish of trumpets, but with 
notable work in the realm of practical statesmanship. 
Fowell Buxton took up the work of Wilberforce on behalf 
of the desolate and oppressed, and lived to bring about 
the abolition of slavery ; whilst Shaftesbury's charity began 
at home with the neglected factory children. Religious 
toleration was represented in the Commons by the 
Jewish Relief Bill, and its opposite in the Lords by the 
defeat of that measure. Althorp amended the Poor 
Laws, and, though neither he nor his colleagues would 
admit the fact, the bill rendered, by its alterations in the 
provisions of settlement and the bold attack which it made 
on the thraldom of labour, the repeal of the Corn Laws 
inevitable. Grant renewed the charter of the East India 
Company, but not its monopoly of the trade with the East. 
Roebuck brought forward a great scheme of education, whilst 



yu LORD JOHN RUSSELL ^B 

Orotc souglit to iVilroducn tlic ballot, and ITumo, in thej 
interests of economy, Ltii at the cost of much personal odium, 
assailed sinecures and extravagance in every shai)e and form. 
^Vard drew attention to the abuses of the Irish Church, and 
did much by his exertions to lessen them ; and Lord John 
Kussell a year or two later brought about a civic revolution 
by tlu; Municipal Reform Act — a measure which, next to 
liu' rc;forni of l*nrliaiiR:nl, did more to broaden and uplift the 
political life of th(; people than any other enactment of the 
century. Ireland blocked the way of Lord Grey's Ministry, 
and the wild talk and hectoring attitude of O'Connell, and 
his bold bid for personal ascendency, made it difficult for 
responsible statesmen to deal calmly with the problems by 
which tlu!y were confronted. 

il is true that 1 vord Joiin was not always on the side of the 
angels of progress and redress. 1 U; blundered occasionally 
like; other men, and sometimes even hesitated strangely to 
give effect to his convictions, and therefore it would be idle 
as well as absurd to attemi)t to make out that he was 
consistent, much less infallible. The Radicals a little later 
complained that he talked of finality in reform, and supported 
the coercive measures of Stanley in Ireland, and opposed 
Hume in his efforts to secure the abolition of naval and mili- 
tary sinecures. He declined to support a proposed investi- 
gation of the pension list. He set his face against Tennyson's 
scheme for shortening the duration of Parliaments, and Orote 
had to reckon with his hostility to the adoption of the ballot. 
Hut in spite of it all, he was still, in Sydney Smith's happy 
j)hrase, to all intents and purposes * Lord John Reformer.' 
No one doubted his honesty or challenged his motives. 
The compass by which Russell steered his course through 
political life might tremble, but men felt that it remained true. 



FIRST VISIT TO IRELAND 9I 

Ireland drew forth his sympathies, but he failed to 
sec any way out of the difficulty. ' I wish I knew what 
to do to help your country,' were his words to Moore, 
' but, as I do not, it is of no use giving her smooth words, 
as O'Connell told me, and I must be silent.' It was 
not in his nature, however, to sit still with folded hands. 
He held his peace, but quietly crossed the Channel to 
study the problem on the spot. It was his first visit to 
the distressful country for many years, and he wished Moore 
to accompany him as guide, philosopher, and friend. He 
assured the poet that he would allow him to be as patriotic 
as he pleased about ' the first flower of the earth and first 
gem of the sea ' during the proposed sentimental journey. 
* Your being a rebel,' were his words, ' may somewhat atone 
for my being a Cabinet Minister.' Moore, however, was 
compelled to decline the tempting proposal by the necessity 
of making ends meet by sticking to the hack work which 
that universal provider of knowledge, Dr. Lardner, had set 
him in the interests of the ' Cabinet Encyclopoedia'— an enter- 
prise to which men of the calibre of Mackintosh, Southey, 
Herschell, and even Walter Scott had lent a helping hand. 

Lord John landed in Ireland in the beginning of Sep- 
tember 1833, and went first to Lord Duncannon's place at 
Bessborough. Afterwards he proceeded to Waterford to 
visit Lord Ebrington, his colleague in the representation of 
Devonshire. He next found his way to Cork and Killarney, 
and he wrote again to Moore urging him to 'hang Dr. 
Lardner on his tree of knowledge,' and to join him at the 
eleventh hour. Moore must have been in somewhat 
reduced circumstances at the moment— for he was a luxurious, 
pleasure-loving man, who never required much persuasion 
to throw down his work — since such an appeal availed 



92 LORD JOHN RUSSELL ^ 

nothing. Meanwhile Lord John had carried Lord Ebring- 
ton back to DubUn, and they went together to the North of 
Ireland. The visit to Belfast attracted considerable atten- 
tion ; Lord John's services over the Reform Bill were of 
course fresh in the public mind, and he was entertained in 
orthodox fashion at a public dinner. This short tour in 
Ireland did much to open his eyes to the real grievances of 
the people, and, fresh from the scene of disaffection, he was 
able to speak with authority when the late autumn compelled 
the Whig Cabinet to throw everything else aside in order to 
devise if possible some measure of relief for Ireland. Stanley, 
was Chief Secretary, and, though one of the most brilliant 
men of his time alike in deed and word, unfortunately his 
haughty temper and autocratic leanings were a grievous 
hindrance if a policy of coercion was to be exchanged for 
the more excellent way of conciliation. O'Connell opposed 
his policy in scathing terms, and attacked him personally with 
bitter invective, and in the end there was open war between 
the two men. 

Lord Grey, now that Parliamentary Reform had been 
conceded, was developing into an easy going aristocratic 
Whig of somewhat contracted sympathies, and Stanley, 
though still in the Cabinet, was apparently determined 
to administer the affairs of Ireland on the most ap- 
proved Tory principles. Althorp, Russell, and Duncannon 
were men whose sympathies leaned more or less decidedly 
in the opposite direction, and therefore, especially with 
O'Connell thundering at the gates with the Irish people and 
the English Radicals at his back, a deadlock was inevitable. 
Durham, in ill health and chagrin, and irritated by the sta- 
tionary, if not reactionary, attitude of certain members ot 
the Grey Administration, resigned office in the spring of 



POOR LAW REFORM 93 

1833. Goderich became Privy Seal, and thisenabled Stanley 
to exchange the Irish Secretaryship for that of the Colonies. 
He had driven Ireland to the verge of revolt, but he had 
nevertheless made an honest attempt to grapple with many 
practical evils, and his Education Bill was a piece of con- 
structive statesmanship which placed Roman Catholics on 
an equahty with Protestants. Early in the session of 
1834 Althorp introduced the Poor Law Amendment 
Act, and the measure was passed in July. The changes 
which it brought about were startling, for its enact- 
ments were drastic. This great economic measure came 
to the relief of a nation in which ' one person in every 
seven was a pauper.' The new law limited relief to 
destitution, prohibited out-door help to the able-bodied, 
beyond medical aid, instituted tests to detect imposture, 
confederated parishes into unions, and substituted large 
district workhouses for merely local shelters for the destitute. 
In five years the poor rate was reduced by three millions, 
and the population, set free by the new interpretation of 
' Settlement,' were able, in their own phrase, to follow the 
work and to congregate accordingly wherever the: chance of 
a livelihood offered. One great question followed hard 
on the heels of another. 

In the King's Speech at the opening of Parliament, the 
consideration of Irish tithes was recommended, for extin- 
guishing ' all just causes of complaint without injury to the 
rights and property of any class of subjects or to any institu- 
tion in Church or State.' Mr. Littleton (afterwards Lord 
Hatherton), who had succeeded Stanley as Irish Secretary 
accordingly introduced a new Tithe Bill, the object of which 
was to change the tithe first into a rent-charge payable by 
the landlord, and eventually into. land tax. The measure also 



94 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

proposed that the clergy should be content with a sum which 
fell short of the amount to which they were entitled by law, 
so that riot and bloodshed might be avoided by lessened 
demands. On the second reading of the bill, Lord John 
frankly avowed the faith that was in him, a circumstance 
which led to unexpected results. He declared that, as he 
understood it, the aim of the bill was to determine and secure 
the amount of the tithe. The question of appropriation was 
to be kept entirely distinct. If the object of the bill was 
to grant a certain sum to the Established Church of Ireland, 
and the question was to end there, his opinion of it might 
be different. But he understood it to be a bill to secure 
a certain amount of property and revenue destined by the 
State to religious and charitable purposes, and if the State 
should find that it was not appropriated justly to the pur- 
poses of religious and moral instruction, it would then be 
the duty of Parliament to consider the necessity of a different 
appropriation. His opinion was that the revenues of the 
Church of Ireland were larger than necessary for the religious 
and moral instruction of the persons belonging to that 
Church, and for the stability of the Church itself. 

Lord John did not think it would be advisable or wise 
to mix the question of appropriation with the question of 
amount of the revenues ; but when Parliament had vindi- 
cated the property in tithes, he should then be prepared to 
assert his opinion with regard to their appropriation. If, 
when the revenue was once secured, the assertion of that 
opinion should lead him to differ and separate from those 
with whom he was united by political connection, and for 
whom he entertained the deepest private affection, he should 
feel much regret ; yet he should, at whatever cost and 
sacrifice, do what he should consider his bounden duty — 
namely, do justice to Ireland. 



UPSETTING THE COACH 95 

He afterwards explained that this speech, which pro- 
duced a great impression, was prompted by the attitude of 
Stanley concerning the permanence and inviolability of the 
Irish Church. He was, in fact, afraid that if Stanley's 
statement was allowed to pass in silence by his colleagues, 
the whole Government would be regarded as pledged to the 
maintenance in their existing shape of the temporalities of 
an alien institution. Lord John accordingly struck from his 
own bat, amid the cheers of the Radicals. Stanley expressed 
to Sir James Graham his view of the situation in the now 
familiar phrase, ' Johnny has upset the coach.' The truth 
was, divided counsels existed in the Cabinet on this question 
of appropriation, and Lord John's blunt deliverance, though 
it did not wreck the Ministry, placed it in a dilemma. He 
\yas urged by some of his colleagues to explairi away what 
he had said, but he had made up his mind and was in no 
humour to retract. 

Palmerston, with whom he was destined to have many an 
encounter in coming days, thought he ought to have been 
turned out of the Cabinet, and others of his colleagues were 
hardly less incensed. The independent member, in the person 
of Mr. Ward, who sat for St. Albans, promptly took advantage 
of Russell's speech to bring forward a motion to the effect 
that the Church in Ireland ' exceeds the wants of the popu- 
lation, and ought to be reduced.' This proposition was 
elbowed out of the way by the appointment of a Royal Com- 
mission of Inquiry into the revenues of the Irish Church ; but 
Stanley felt that his position in the Cabinet was now unten- 
able, and therefore retired from office in the company of the 
Duke of Richmond, Lord Ripon, and Sir James Graham. The 
Radicals made no secret of their glee. Ward, they held, had 
been a benefactor to the party beyond their wildest dreams, 
for he had exorcised the evil spirits of the Grey Administration. 



96 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Lord Grey had an opportunity at this crisis of infusing 
fresh vigour into his Ministry by raising to Cabinet rank men 
of progressive views who stood well with the country. | 
Another course was, however, taken, for the Marquis of 
Conyngham became Postmaster-General, the Earl of Carlisle 
Privy Seal, whilst Lord Auckland went to the Admiralty, and 
Mr. Spring Rice became Colonial Secretary, and so the op- 
portunity of a genuine reconstruction of the Government was 
lost. The result was, the Government was weakened, and 
no one was satisfied. 'Whigs, Tories, and Radicals,' wrote 
Greville, 'join in full cry against them, and the " Times," in a 
succession of bitter vituperative articles very well done, fires 
off its contempt and disgust at the paltry patching-up of the 
Cabinet.' 

Durham's retirement, though made on the score of 
ill-health, had not merely cooled the enthusiasm of the 
Radicals towards the Grey Administration, but had also 
awakened their suspicions. Lord John was restive, and 
inclined to kick over the traces ; whilst Althorp, whose tastes 
were bucolic, had also a desire to depart. ' Nature,' he 
exclaimed, ' intended me to be a grazier ; but men will 
insist on making me a statesman.' He confided to Lord 
John that he detested office to such an extent that he 
' wished, himself dead ' every morning when he awoke. 
Meanwhile vested interests here, there, and everywhere, 
were uniting their forces against the Ministry, and its sins 
of omission as well as of commission were leaping to light 
on the platform and in the Press. Wellington found his 
reputation for political sagacity agreeably recognised, and 
he fell into the attitude of an oracle whose jeremiads 
had come true. When Lord Grey proposed the renewal 
of. the Coercion Act .without alteration. Lord Althorp 



O'CONNELL THROWS DOWN THE GAUNTLET 97 

expressed a strong objection to such a proceeding. He had 
assured Littleton that the Act would not be put in force 
again in its entirety, and the latter, with more candour than 
discretion, had communicated the intimation to O'Connell, 
who bruited it abroad. 

Lord John had come to definite convictions about 
Ireland, and he was determined not to remain in the Cabinet 
unless he was allowed to speak out. On June 23 the Irish 
Tithe Bill reached the stage of committee, and Littleton 
drew attention to the changes which had been introduced 
into the measure — slight concessions to public opinion which 
Lord John felt were too paltry to meet the gravity of the 
case. O'Connell threw down the gauntlet to the Ministry, 
and asked the House to pass an amendment asserting that 
the surplus revenues of the Church ought to be applied to 
purposes of public utility. Peel laid significant stress on 
the divided counsels in the Ministry, and accused Lord John 
of asserting that the Irish Church was the greatest grievance 
of which the nation had ever had to complain. The latter 
repudiated such a charge, and explained that what he had 
said was that the revenues of the Church were too great for 
its stability, thereby implying that he both desired and con- 
templated its continued existence. Although not unwilling 
to support a mild Coercion Bill, if it went hand in hand with 
a determined effort to deal with abuses, he made it clear 
that repressive enactments without such an effort at Reform 
were altogether repugnant to his sense of justice. He 
declared that Coercion Acts were ' peculiarly abhorrent to 
those who pride themselves on the name of Whigs ; ' and he 
added that, when such a necessity arose. Ministers were con- 
fronted with the duty of looking ' deeper into the causes of 
the long-standing and permanent evils ' of Ireland. I am 

H 



98 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

not prepared to continue the government of Ireland without 
fully probing her condition ; I am not prepared to propose 
bills for coercion, and the maintenance of a large force of 
military and police, without endeavouring to improve, so far 
as lies in my powder, the condition of the people. I will not 
be a Minister to carry on systems which I think founded 
on bigotry and prejudice. Be the consequence what it 
may, I am content to abide by these opinions, to carry them 
out to their fullest extent, not by any premature declaration 
of mere opinion, but by going on gradually, from time to 
time improving our institutions, and, without injuring the 
ancient and venerable fabrics, rendering them fit and proper 
mansions for a great, free, and intelligent people.' Such a 
speech was worthy of Fox, and it recalls a passage in Lord 
John's biography of that illustrious statesman. Fox did his 
best in the teeth of prejudice and obloquy to free Ireland 
from the thraldom which centuries of oppression had 
created: 'In 1780, in 1793, and in 1829, that which had 
been denied to reason was granted to force. Ireland 
triumphed, not because the justice of her claims was appa- 
rent, but because the threat of insurrection overcame preju- 
dice, made fear superior to bigotry, and concession trium- 
phant over persecution.' ^ 

Even O'Connell expressed his admiration of this bold 
and fearless declaration, and the speech did much to in- 
crease Lord John's reputation, both within and without the 
House of Commons. In answer to a letter of congratula- 
tion, he said that his friends would make him, by their 
encouragement — what he felt he was not by nature — 
a good speaker. 'There are occasions,' he added, 'on 
which one must express one's feelings or sink into contempt. 

1 Russell's Life of Fox ^ vol. i. p. 242. 



CROSS CURRENTS 99 

I own I have not been easy during the period in which I 
thought it absolutely necessary to suspend the assertion of 
my opinions in order to secure peace in this country.' Lord 
John's attitude on this occasion threw into relief his keen 
sense of political responsibility, no less than the honesty 
and courage which were characteristic of the man. A day 
or two later the Cabinet drifted on to the rocks. The 
policy of Coercion was reaffirmed in spite of Althorp's pro- 
tests, and in spite also of Littleton's pledge to the contrary 
to O'Connell. Generosity was not the strong point of the 
Irish orator, and, to the confusion of Littleton and the 
annoyance of Grey, he insisted on taking the world into his 
confidence from his place in Parliament. This was the last 
straw. Lord Althorp would no longer serve, and Lord 
Grey, harassed to death, determined no longer to lead. 
After all, ' Johnny ' was only one of many who upset the 
coach, which, in truth, turned over because its wheels were 
rotten. On the evening of June 29 a meeting of the Cabinet 
was held, and, in Russell's words, ' Lord Grey placed before 
us the letters containing his own resignation and that of Lord 
Althorp, which he had sent early in the morning to the 
King. He likewise laid before us the King's gracious 
acceptance of his resignation, and he gave to Lord Mel- 
bourne a sealed letter from his Majesty. Lord Melbourne, 
upon opening this letter, found in it an invitation to him to 
undertake the formation of a Government. Seeing that 
nothing was to be done that night, I left the Cabinet and 
went to the Opera.' 

Lord Melbourne was sent for in July, and took his 
place at the head of a Cabinet which remained practically 
unaltered. He had been Home Secretary under Grey, 
and Duncannon was now called to fill that post. The 

H 2 



lOO LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

first Melbourne Administration was short-lived, for when 
it had existed four months Earl Spencer died, and Althorp, 
on his succession to the peerage, was compelled to 
relinquish his leadership of the House of Commons. 
William IV. cared little for Melbourne, and less for Russell, 
and, as he wished to pick a quarrel with the Whigs, since 
their policy excited his alarm, he used Althorp for a pretext. 
Lord Grey had professed to regard Althorp as indispensable 
to the Ministry, and the King imagined that Melbourne 
would adopt the same view. Although reluctant to part with 
Althorp, who eagerly seized the occasion of his accession to 
an earldom to retire from official life, Melbourne refused to 
believe that the heavens would fall because of that fact. 

There was no pressing conflict of opinion between 
the King and his advisers, but William IV. nevertheless 
availed himself of the accident of Althorp's elevation 
to the peerage to dismiss the Ministry. The reversion 
of the leadership in the Commons fell naturally to Lord 
John, and Melbourne was quick to recognise the fact. 
' Thus invited,' says Lord John Russell, ' I considered it 
my duty to accept the task, though I told Lord Melbourne 
that I could not expect to have the same influence with the 
House of Commons which Lord Althorp had possessed. 
In conversation with Mr. Abercromby I said, more in joke 
than in earnest, that if I were offered the command of the 
Channel Fleet, and thought it my duty to accept, I should not 
refuse it.' It was unhke Sydney Smith to treat the remark 
about taking command of the Channel Fleet seriously, when 
'he elaborated a charge' against Lord John on the Deans 
and Chapters question ; but even the witty Canon could lose 
his temper sometimes. 

The King, however, had strong opinions on the subject 



WILLIAM IV. DEFENDER OF THE FAITH lOl 

of Lord John's qualifications, and he expressed in emphatic 
terms his disapproval. The nation trusted Lord John, and 
had come to definite and flattering conclusions about him 
as a statesman, but at Windsor a different opinion pre- 
vailed. The King, in fact, made no secret to Lord Mel- 
bourne, in the famous interview at Brighton, of his conviction 
that Lord John Russell had neither the ability nor the in- 
fluence to qualify him for the task ; and he added that 
he would ' make a wretched figure ' when opposed in the 
Commons by men like Peel and Stanley. His Majesty 
further volunteered the remark that he did not ' understand 
that young gentleman,' and could not agree to the arrange- 
ment proposed. William, moreover, took occasion to pose 
as a veritable, as well as titular, Defender of the Faith, for, 
on the authority of Baron Stockmar, the King ' considered 
Lord John Russell to have pledged himself to certain en- 
croachments on the Church, which his Majesty had made 
up his mind and expressed his determination to resist.' As 
Russell was clearly quite out of the reckoning, Melbourne 
suggested two other names. But the King had made up his 
mind on more subjects than one, and next morning. Lord 
Melbourne found himself in possession of a written paper, 
which informed him his Majesty had no further occasion 
either for his services or for those of his colleagues. 

William IV. acted within his constitutional rights, 
but such an exercise of the royal prerogative was, to 
say the least, worthy of George IIL in his most unin- 
spired mood. Althorp regarded the King's action as the 
'greatest piece of folly ever committed,' and Lord John, 
in reply to the friendly note which contained this emphatic 
verdict, summoned his philosophy to his aid in the follow- 
ing characteristic rejoinder : ' I suppose everything is for 



102 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the best in this world ; otherwise the only good which I 
should see in this event would be that it saves me from 
being sadly pommelled by Peel and Stanley, to say nothing 
of O'ConnelL' Wellington, who was hastily summoned by 
the King, suggested that Sir Robert Peel should be entrusted 
with the formation of a new Government. 

Sir Robert Peel was accordingly sent for in hot haste from 
Rome to form a new Ministry. On his arrival in London in 
December 1834, he at once set about the formation of a 
Cabinet. This is Jekyll's comment : ' Our crisis has been 
entertaining, and Peel is expected to-day. I wish he could 
have remained long enough at Rome to have learnt mosaic, 
of which parti-coloured materials our Cabinets have been 
constructed for twenty years, and for want of cement have 
fallen to pieces. The Whigs squall out, " Let us depart, 
for the Reformers grow too impatient." The Tories squall 
out, " Let us come in, and we will be very good boys, and 
become Reformers ourselves." However, the country is safe 
by the Reform Bill, for no Minister can remain in ofifice now 
by corrupt Parliaments ; he must act with approbation of the 
country or lose his Cabinet in a couple of months.' At the 
General Election which followed, Peel issued his celebrated 
address to the electors of Tamworth, in which he declared 
himself favourable to the reform of ' proved abuses,' and to 
the carrying out of such measures 'gradually, dispassionately, 
and deliberately,' in order that it might be lasting. Lord 
John was returned again for South Devon ; but on the re- 
assembling of Parliament the Liberal majority had dwindled 
from 314 to 107. It was during his election tour that he 
delivered an address at Totnes, which Greville described as 
not merely ' a very masterly performance,' but ' one of the 
cleverest and most appropriate speeches ' he had ever read. 



LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IO3 

and for which his friends warmly compHmented him. It 
was a powerful and humorous examination of the Tories' 
professed anxiety for Reform, and of the prospects of any 
Reform measures being carried out by their instru- 
mentality. 

Lord John now became leader of the Opposition, though 
the Duke of Bedford dreaded the strain, and expostulated 
with his son on his acceptance of so irksome and laborious 
a task. ' You will have to conduct and keep in order a 
noisy and turbulent pack of hounds which, I think, you will 
find it quite impossible to restrain.' The Duke of Bedford's 
fears were not groundless, and Lord John afterwards con- 
fessed that, in the whole period during which he had led the 
Liberal party in the House of Commons, he never had so 
difficult a task. The forces under his command consisted 
of a few stalwart Radicals, a number of Whigs of the tradi- 
tional and somewhat stationary type, and some sixty Irish 
members. Nevertheless, he promptly assumed an aggressive 
attitude, and his first victory as leader of the Opposition was 
won on the question of the choice of a new Speaker, when 
Mr. Abercromby was placed in the chair in preference to 
the Ministerial candidate. As the session went on. Lord 
John's resources in attack grew more and more marked, but 
he was foiled by the lack of cohesion amongst his followers. 
It became evident that, unless all sections of the Opposi- 
tion were united as one man, the Government of Sir Robert 
Peel could not be overthrown. Alliance with the Radicals 
and the Irish party, although hateful to the old-fashioned 
Whigs, was in fact imperative. Lord John summoned a 
meeting of the Opposition at Lord Lichfield's house ; the 
support of the Radicals and Irish was secured, and then 
the leader marshalled his forces for what he hoped would 



104 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

prove a decisive victory. His expectations were not disap- 
pointed, for early in April he brought forward a motion for the 
appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church 
to general moral and religious purposes, and won with a 
majority of twenty-seven votes (285 to 258). Sir Robert Peel 
forthwith resigned, and the Whigs were avenged for their 
cavalier dismissal by the King, 

On the day after the Prime Minister's resignation, Lord 
John Russell was married — April 11, 1835, at St. George's, 
Hanover Square — to Adelaide, Lady Ribblesdale, the widow 
of the second bearer of that title. The respite from political 
strife was of short duration, for at the end of forty-eight 
hours he was summoned from Woburn to take the seals of 
the Home Office in the second Melbourne Administration. 
The members of the new Cabinet presented themselves 
to their constituents for re-election, and Lord John suffered 
defeat in Devonshire. A seat was, however, found for him 
at Stroud, and in May he was back again in the House of 
Commons. The first measure of importance introduced by 
him, on June 5, was the Municipal Reform Act — a measure 
which embodied the results of the Commission on the 
subject appointed by Lord Grey. The bill swept away 
a host of antiquated and absurd privileges of corporate 
cities and towns, abolished the authority of cliques of 
freemen, rectified a variety of abuses, and entrusted muni- 
cipal government to the hands of all taxpayers. Lord 
John piloted the measure through the Commons, and 
fought almost single-handed the representatives of vested 
rights. After a long contest with the Opposition and the 
Lords, he had the satisfaction of passing the bill, in a 
somewhat modified form, through its final stages in Sept- 
ember, though the Peers, as usual, opposed it as long as they 



A POPULAR OVATION I05 

dared, and only yielded at last when Peel in the one House 
and Wellington in the other recommended concession. 

The Irish Tithes Bill was subsequently introduced, 
and, though it now included the clauses for the appro- 
priation of certain revenues, it passed the Commons by 
a majority of thirty-seven. The Lords, however, struck 
out the appropriation clauses, and the Government in con- 
sequence abandoned the measure. The Irish Municipal 
Bill shared a similar fate, and Lord John's desire to see 
justice done in Ireland was brought for the moment to 
naught. The labours of the session had been peculiarly 
arduous, and in the autumn his health suffered from the 
prolonged strain. His ability as a leader of the House of 
Commons, in spite of the dismal predictions of William IV. 
and the admonitions of paternal solicitude, was now recog- 
nised by men of all shades of opinion, though, of course, he 
had to confront the criticism alike of candid friends and 
equally outspoken foes. He recruited his energies in the 
West of England, and, though he had been so recently 
defeated in Devonshire, wherever he went the people, by 
way of amends, gave him an ovation. Votes of thanks were 
accorded to him for his championship of civil and religious 
liberty, and in November he was entertained at a banquet 
at Bristol, and presented with a handsome testimonial, 
raised by the sixpences of ardent Reformers. 

Parliament, in the Speech from the Throne, when the 
session of 1836 began, was called upon to take into early 
consideration various measures of Reform. The programme 
of the Ministry, like that of many subsequent administrations, 
was not lacking in ambition. It was proposed to deal with 
the antiquated and vexatious manner in which from time 
immemorial the tithes of the English Church had been col- 



I06 LORD JOHN RUSSELL [ 

lected. The question of Irish tithes was also once more to 
be brought forward for solution ; the municipal corporations 
of Ireland and the relief of its poor were to be dealt with 
in the light of recent legislation for England in the same 
direction. Improvements in the practical working of the 
administration of justice, ' more especially in the Court of 
Chancery,' were foreshadowed, and it was announced that 
the early attention of Parliament would also be called to 
certain ' grievances which affect those who dissent from the 
doctrines or discipline of the Established Church.' Such a 
list of measures bore on its very face the unmistakeable 
stamp of Lord John Russell's zeal for political redress and 
religious toleration. Early in the session he brought forward 
two measures for the relief of Nonconformists. One of them 
legalised marriages in the presence of a registrar in Noncon- 
formist places of worship, and the other provided for a 
general civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths. 
His original proposal was that marriage in church as 
well as chapel should only take place after due notice 
had been given to the registrar. The bishops refused 
to entertain such an idea,- and the House of Lords gave 
effect to their objections, with the result that the registrar 
was bowed out of church, though not out of chapel, where 
indeed he remains to this day. The Tithe Commutation 
Act and three other measures — one for equalising the 
incomes of prelates, rearranging ancient dioceses and 
creating new sees ; another for the better application of 
the revenues of the Church to its general purposes ; and 
a third to diminish pluralities — bore witness to his ardour 
for ecclesiastical reform. The first became law in 1836, and 
the other two respectively in 1838 and 1839. He lent 
his aid also to the movement for the foundation on a broad 



THE queen's accession I07 

and liberal basis of a new university in London with power 
to confer degrees — a concession to Nonconformist scholar- 
ship and liberal culture generally, which was the more 
appreciated since Oxford and Cambridge still jealously 
excluded by their religious tests the youth of the Free 
Churches. 

The Tithe Commutation Act was passed in June ; it 
provided for the exchange of tithes into a rent-charge upon 
land payable in money, but according to a sliding scale 
which varied with the average price of corn during the 
seven preceding years. In the opinion of Lord Farn- 
borough, to no measure since the Reformation has the 
Church owed so much peace and security. The Irish 
Municipal Bill was carried in the course of the session 
through the Commons, but the Lords rendered the measure 
impossible ; and though the Irish Poor Law Bill was carried, 
a different fate awaited Irish Tithes. This measure was 
introduced for the fifth time, but in consequence of the 
King's death, on June 20, and the dissolution of Parliament 
which followed, it had to be abandoned. Between 1835 
and 1837 Lord John, as Home Secretary, brought about 
many changes for the better in the regulation of prisons, and 
especially in the treatment of juvenile offenders. By his 
directions prisoners in Newgate, from metropolitan counties, 
were transferred to the gaol of each county. Following in 
the steps of Sir Samuel Romilly, he also reduced the number 
of capital crimes, and, later on, brought about various prison 
reforms, notably the establishment of a reformatory for juve- 
nile offenders. 

The rejoicings over Queen Victoria's accession in the 
summer of 1837 were quickly followed by a General Election. 
The result of this appeal to the country was that the Liberal 



^^^ LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

majority in the House of Commons was reduced to less 
than forty. Lord John was again returned for Stroud, and 
on that occasion he delivered a speech in which he cleverly 
contrasted the legislative achievements of the Tories with 
those of the Whigs. He made a chivalrous allusion to the 
' illustrious Princess who has ascended the Throne with purest 
intentions and the justest desires.' One passage from his 
speech merits quotation: 'We have had glorious female 
reigns. Those of Elizabeth and Anne led us to great victories 
Let us now hope that we are going to have a female reign 
Illustrious in its deeds of peace-an Elizabeth without her 
tyranny, an Anne without her weakness. . . . I trust that we 
may succeed in making the reign of Victoria celebrated amonc. 
the nations of the earth and to all posterity, and that Eng" 
land may not forget her precedence of teaching the nations 
how to live.' 

Lord Melbourne had never been a favourite with William 
but from the first he stood high in the regard of the young 
Queen. Her Majesty was but eighteen when she ascended 
the throne upon which her reign has shed so great a lustre ; 
she had been brought up in comparative seclusion, and her 
knowledge of public affairs was, of necessity, small. Lord 
Melbourne at that time was approaching sixty, and the 
respect which her Majesty gave to his years was heightened 
by the quick recognition of the fact that the Prime Minister 
was one of the most experienced statesmen which the 
country at that moment possessed. He was also a man of 
ready wit, and endowed with the charm of fine manners, and 
under his easy nonchalance there lurked more earnest ' and 
patriotic conviction than he ever cared to admit. ' I am 
sorry to hurt any man's fedings,' said Sydney Smith, 'and 
to brush aside the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety he 



k 



LORD MELBOURNE AND THE COURT I09 



2 has reared ; but I accuse our Minister of honesty and dih- 

ti gence.' Ridiculous rumours filled the air during the earliest 

, years of her Majesty's reign concerning the supposed undue 

influence which Lord Melbourne exerted at Court. The 

i more advanced Radicals complained that he sought to 

] render himself indispensable to the sovereign, and that his 

; plan was to surround her with his friends, relations, and 

j creatures, and so to obtain a prolonged tenure of power. 

The Tories also grumbled, and made no secret of the same 

I ungenerous suspicions. They knew neither her Majesty 

nor Lord Melbourne who thus spoke. At the same time, it 

must be admitted that Lord Melbourne was becoming more 

I and more out of touch with popular aspirations, and the 

political and social questions which were rapidly coming to 

i the front were treated by him in a somewhat cavalier 

manner. 

Russell had his own misgivings, and was by no means 
inclined to lay too much stress on the opinions of philo- 
sophical Radicals of the type of Grote. At the same time, 
he urged upon Melbourne the desirability of meeting the 
Radicals as far as possible, and he laid stress on the fact 
that they, at least, were not seeking for grounds of difference 
with the Premier. ' There are two things which I think 
would be more acceptable than any others to this body — 
the one to make the ballot an open question, the other to 
remove Tories from the political command of the army.' 
Lord Melbourne, however^ believed that the ballot would 
create many evils and cure none. Lord John yielded to his 
chief, but in doing so brought upon himself a good deal of 
angry criticism, which was intensified by an unadvised 
declaration in the House of Commons. In his speech on 
the Address he referred to the question of Reform, and 



no LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

declared that it was quite impossible for him to take part 
in further measures of Reform. The people of England 
might revise the Act of 1832, or agitate for a new one ; 
but as for himself, he refused to be associated with any such 
movement. A storm of expostulation and angry protest! 
broke out ; but the advanced Reformers failed to move ' 
Lord John from the position which he had taken. So 
they concentrated their hostility in a harmless nickname, 
and Lord John for some time forward was called in Radical 
circles and certain journalistic publications, * Finality Jack.' 
This honest but superfluous and embarrassing deliverance 
brought him taunts and reproaches, as well as a tem- 
porary loss of popularity. It was always characteristic of 
Lord John to speak his mind, and he sometimes did it not 
wisely but too well. Grote wrote in February 1838 : 'The 
degeneracy of the Liberal party, and their passive acquies- 
cence in everything, good or bad, which emanates from the 
present Ministry, puts the accomplishment of any political 
good out of the question ; and it is not worth while to un- 
dergo the fatigue of a nightly attendance in Parliament for 
the simple purpose of sustaining Whig Conservatism against 
Tory Conservatism. I now look back wistfully to my un- 
finished Greek history.' Yet Lord Brougham, in the year 
of the Queen's accession, declared that Russell was the 
* stoutest Reformer of them all.' 

The rebellion in Canada was the first great incident in the 
new reign, and the Melbourne Cabinet met the crisis by pro- 
posals — which were moved by Lord John in the Commons, 
and adopted — for suspending the Canadian Constitution for 
the space of four years. The Earl of Durham, at the be- 
ginning of 1838, was appointed Governor- General with 
extraordinary powers, and he reluctantly accepted the dilTfi- 



LORD DURHAM AND CANADA III 

cult post, trusting, as he himself said, to the confidence and 
support of the Government, and to the forbearance of those 
who differed from his political views. No one doubts that 
Durham acted to the best of his judgment, though everyone 
admits that he exceeded at least the letter of his authority ; 
and no one can challenge, in the light of the subsequent 
history of Canada, the greatness and far-reaching nature of 
his services, both to the Crown and to the Dominion. Re- 
lying on the forbearance and support, in the faith of which 
he had accepted his difficult commission, the Governor- 
General took a high hand with the rebels ; but his ordinances 
were disallowed, and he was practically discredited and 
openly deserted by the Government. When he was on the 
point of returning home, a broken-hearted man, in failing 
health, it was Lord John Russell who at length stood up in 
Durham's defence. Speaking on the Durham Indemnity 
Bill, Lord John said : ' I ask you to pass this Bill of Indem- 
nity, telling you that I shall be prepared when the time 
comes, not indeed to say that the terms or words of the 
ordinances passed by the Earl of Durham are altogether 
to be justified, but that, looking at his conduct as a whole, 
I shall be ready to take part with him. I shall be ready to 
bear my share of any responsibility which is to be incurred 
in these difficult circumstances.' The generous nature of 
this declaration was everywhere recognised, and by none 
more heartily than Lord Durham. ' I do not conceal from 
you that my feelings have been deeply wounded by the con- 
duct of the Ministry. From you, however, and you alone 
of them all, have I received any cordial support personally ; 
and I feel, as I have told you in a former letter, very 
grateful to you.' 

Meanwhile Lord John Russell had been called upon 



112 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

to oppose Mr. Grote's motion in favour of the ballot. 
Although the motion was lost by 315 to 198 votes, the 
result was peculiarly galling to Lord John, for amongst the 
majority were those members who were usually opposed to 
the Government, whilst the minority was made up of Lord 
Melbourne's followers. But the crisis threatening the 
Ministry passed away when a motion of want of confidence 
in Lord Glenelg, the head of the Colonial Office, was 
defeated by twenty-nine votes. The Irish legislation of the 
Government as represented by the Tithe Bill did not prosper, 
and it became evident that, in order to pass the measure, the 
Appropriation Clause must be abandoned. Although Lord 
John Russell emphatically declared in 1835 that no Tithe 
Bill could be effective which did not include an Appro- 
priation Clause, he gave way to the claims of political ex- 
pediency, and further alienated the Radicals by allowing a 
measure which had been robbed of its potency to pass 
through Parliament. Lord Melbourne's Government accom- 
plished during the session something in the direction of 
Irish Reform by the passage of the Poor Law, but it failed 
to carry the Municipal Bill, which in many respects was the 
most important of the three. 

The autumn, which witnessed on both sides of the 
Atlantic the excitement over Lord Durham's mission to 
Canada, was darkened in the home of Lord John by the 
death at Brighton, on November i, of his wife. His first 
impulse was to place the resignation of his office and of 
leadership in the Commons in the hands of his chief. Urgent 
appeals from all quarters were made to him to remain at his 
post, and, though his own health was precarious, cheered by 
the sympathy of his colleagues and of the country, he re- 
sumed his work after a few weeks of quiet at Cassiobury. 



113 



CHAPTER VI 

THE TWO FRONT BENCHES 

I 840-1 845 

Lord John's position in the Cabinet and in the Commons — His 
services to Education — Joseph Lancaster — Lord John's Colonial 
Policy — Mr. Gladstone's opinion — Lord Stanmore's recollections — 
The mistakes of the Melbourne Cabinet — The Duke of Wellington's 
opinion of Lord John — The agitation against the Corn Laws — Lord 
John's view of Sir Robert Peel — The Edinburgh Letter — Peel's 
dilemma — Lord John's comment on the situation. 

The truth was, Lord John could not be spared, and his 
strong sense of duty triumphed over his personal grief. One 
shrewd contemporary observer of men and movements 
declared that Melbourne and Russell were the only two men 
in the Cabinet for whom the country cared a straw. The 
opinion of the man in the street was summed up in Sydney 
Smith's assertion that the Melbourne Government could 
not possibly exist without Lord John, for the simple reason 
that five minutes after his departure it would be dissolved 
into 'sparks of liberality and spUnters of reform.' In 
1839 th« Irish policy of the Government was challenged, 
and, on the motion of Lord Roden, a vote of censure was 
carried in the House of Lords. When the matter came 
before the Commons, Lord John delivered a speech so 
adroit and so skilful that friends and foes alike were satisfied, 
and even pronounced Radicals forgot to grumble. 

1 



114 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Lord John's speech averted a Ministerial crisis, and on a 
division the Government won by twenty-two votes. A month 
later the affairs of Jamaica came up for discussion, for the 
Government found itself forced, by the action of the House 
of Assembly in refusing to adopt the Prisons Act which 
had been passed by the Imperial Legislature, to ask Parlia- 
ment to suspend the Constitution of the colony for a period 
of five years ; and on a division they gained their point by 
a majority of only five votes. The Jamaica Bill was an 
autocratic measure, which served still further to discredit ' 
Lord Melbourne with the party of progress. Chagrined at i 
the narrow majority, the Cabinet submitted its resignation " 
to her Majesty, who assured Lord John that she had, 
' never felt more pain ' than when she learnt the decision I 
of her Ministers. The Queen sent first for Wellington, ! 
and afterwards, at his suggestion, for Peel, who undertook 
to form an Administration ; but when her Majesty insisted 
on retaining the services of the Whig Ladies-in-Waiting, Sir 
Robert declined to act, and the former Cabinet was recalled 
to office, though hardly with flying colours. 

Education, to hark back for a moment, was the next great 
question with which Lord John dealt, for, in the summer 
of 1839, he brought in a bill to increase the grant to ele- 
mentary schools from 20,000/. a year to 30,000/.— first made 
in 1833— and to place it under the control of the Privy 
Council, as well as to subject the aided schools to inspection. I 
' I explained,' was his own statement, ' in the simplest terms, I 
without any exaggeration, the want of education in the * 
country, the deficiencies of religious instruction, and the , 
injustice of subjecting to the penalties of the criminal law I 
persons who had never been taught their duty to God and 
man.' His proposals, particularly with regard to the establish- 



JOSEPH LANCASTER II5 

ment of a Normal school, were met with a storm of opposi- 
tion. This part of the scheme was therefore abandoned ; 
' but the throwing out of one of our children to the wolf,' 
remarks Lord John, ' did little to appease his fury ! ' At 
length the measure, in its modified shape, was carried in 
the Commons ; but the House of Lords, led on this occasion 
by the Archbishop of Canterbury, by a majority of more than 
a hundred, condemned the scheme entirely. Dr. Blomfield, 
Bishop of London, at this juncture came forward as peace- 
maker, and, at a private meeting at Lansdowne House, 
consisting of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of 
London and Salisbury, Lord Lansdowne, and Lord John 
Russell, the dispute was amicably adjusted, on the basis of 
the reports of the Inspectors of Schools being sent to the 
Bishops as well as to the Committee of Privy Council, and 
co-operation between the Bishops and the Committee in 
the work of education. 

The Duke of Bedford was one of the first men of position 
in the country to come to the aid of Joseph Lancaster— a 
young Quaker philanthropist, who, in spite of poverty and 
obscurity, did more for the cause of popular education in 
England in the early years of the century than all the privi- 
leged people in the country.^ Here a floating straw of remi- 
niscence may be cited, since it throws momentary light on the 
mischievous instincts of a quick-witted boy. Lord John, 
looking back towards the close of his life, said : ' One of my 
earliest recollections as a boy at Woburn Abbey is that of 
putting on Joseph Lancaster's broad hat and mimicking his 
mode of salutation.' 

* Justice has never yet been done to the founder of the Lancas- 
terian system of education. Joseph Lancaster was a remarkable man 
who aroused the conscience of the nation, and even the dull intelligence 
of George IIL, to the imperative need of popular education. 

I 2 



Il6 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Other changes were imminent. Lord Normanby had 
proved himself to be a popular Viceroy of Ireland ; indeed, 
O'Connell asserted that he was one of the best Englishmen 
that had ever been sent across St. George's Channel in an 
ofBcial capacity. He was now Colonial Secretary ; and, 
in spite of his virtues, he was scarcely the man for such a 
position — at all events, at a crisis in which affairs required 
firm handhng. He managed matters so badly that the 
Under-Secretary (Mr. Labouchere, afterwards Lord Taunton) 
was in open revolt. The cards were accordingly shuffled 
in May 1839, and, amongst other and less significant 
changes, Normanby and Russell changed places. Lord 
John quickly made his presence felt at the Colonial Office. 
He was a patient listener to the permanent officials ; indeed, 
he declared that he meant to give six months to making 
himself master of the new duties of his position. Like all 
men of the highest capacity. Lord John was never unwilling 
to learn. He held that the Imperial Government was bound 
not merely by honour, but by enlightened self-interest, to 
protect the rights and to advance the welfare of the Colonies. 
His words are significant, and it seems well to quote them, 
since they gather up the policy which he consistently 
followed : ' If Great Britain gives up her supremacy from a 
niggardly spirit of parsimony, or from a craven fear of help- 
lessness, other Powers will soon look upon the Empire, not 
with the regard due to an equal, as she once was, but with 
jealousy of the height she once held, without the fear she once 
inspired. To build up an empire extending over every sea, 
swaying many diverse races, and combining many forms of 
religion, requires courage and capacity ; to allow such an 
empire to fall to pieces is a task which may be performed 
by the poor in intellect, and the pusillanimous in conduct.' 



COLONIAL POLICY II 7 

When Lord John was once asked at the Colonial Office 
by an official of the French Government how much of 
Australia was claimed as the dominion of Great Britain, he 
promptly answered, ' The whole.' The visitor, quite taken 
aback, found it expedient to take his departure. Lord John 
vigorously assailed the view that colonies which had their 
own parliaments, framed on the British model, were virtually 
independent, and, therefore, had no right to expect more 
than moral help from the Mother Country. During his 
tenure of office New Zealand became part of the British 
dominions. By the treaty of Waitangi, the Queen assumed 
the sovereignty, and the new colony was assured of the 
protection of England. Lord John assured the British 
Provinces of North America that, so long as they wished 
to remain subjects of the Queen, they might confidently rely 
on the protection of England in all emergencies. 

Mr. Gladstone has in recent years done justice to 
the remarkable prescience, and scarcely less remarkable 
administrative skill, which Lord John brought to bear at a 
critical juncture in the conduct of the Colonial policy of 
the Melbourne Government. He lays stress on the ' un- 
faltering courage ' which Russell displayed in meeting, as far 
as was then possible, the legitimate demand for responsible 
self-government. It is not, therefore, surprising that, to 
borrow Mr. Gladstone's words, ' Lord John Russell substi- 
tuted harmony for antagonism in the daily conduct of 
affairs for those Colonies, each of which, in an infancy of 
irrepressible vigour, was bursting its swaddling clothes. Is 
it inexcusable to say that by this decision, which was far 
ahead of the current opinion of the day, he saved the 
Empire, possibly from disruption, certainly from much em- 



Il8 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

barrassment and much discredit.' ' Lord John was a man of 
vision. He saw, beyond most of his contemporaries, the 
coming magnitude of the Empire, and he did his best to 
shape on broad Hnes and to far-reaching issues the poUcy of 
England towards her children beyond the seas. Lord John 
recognised in no churlish or half-hearted spirit the claims 
of the Colonies, nor did he stand dismayed by the vision 
of Empire. ' There was a time when we might have stood 
alone,' are his words. ' That time has passed. We con- 
quered and peopled Canada, we took possession of the 
whole of Australia, Van Dieman's Land, and New Zealand. 
We have annexed India to the Crown. There is no 
going back. For my part, I delight in observing the imi- 
tation of our free institutions, and even our habits and 
manners, in colonies at a distance from the Palace of West- 
minster.' He trusted the Colonies, and refused to believe 
that all the wisdom which was profitable to direct their 
affairs was centred in Downing Street. His attitude was sym- 
pathetic and generous, and at the same time it was candid 
and firm. 

Lord Stanmore's recollections of his father's colleague 
go back to this period, and will be read with interest : ' As 
a boy of ten or twelve I often saw Lord John. His half- 
sister. Lady Louisa Russell, was the wife of my half-brother. 
Lord Abercorn, and Lord John was a frequent guest at Lord 
Abercorn's villa at Stanmore, where my father habitually 
passed his Saturdays and Sundays during the session, and 
where I almost wholly lived. My first conscious remem- 
brance of Lord John dates from the summer of 1839, and 

* * The Melbourne Government : its Acts and Persons, ' by the 
Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. The Nmeteenth C(?«/z/;j, January 
1890, p. 50. 



A HOSTILE RESOLUTION II9 

in that and the following years I often saw him at the Priory. 
Towards the close of 1839 Lord John lost his first wife, and 
the picture of his little figure, in deep mourning, walking by 
the side of my father on the gravel walks about the house in 
the spring and summer of 1840 is one vividly impressed on 
my recollection. His manner to children was not unpleasant, 
and I well remember his pausing, an amused listener to 
a childish and vehement political discussion between his 
step -daughter, Miss Lister, and myself — a discussion which 
he from time to time stirred up to increased animation by 
playfully mischievous suggestions.' 

Early in the session of 1840, the Ministry was met by a 
vote of want of confidence, and in the course of the discus- 
sion Sir James Graham accused Lord John of encouraging 
sedition by appointing as magistrate one of the leaders of 
the Chartist agitation at Newport. Lord John, it turned 
out, had appointed Mr. Frost, the leader in question, on the 
advice of the Lord-Lieutenant, and he was able to prove that 
his own speech at Liverpool had been erroneously reported. 
The hostile resolution was accordingly repelled, and the 
division resulted in favour of the Government. For six years 
Turkey and Egypt had been openly hostile to each other, 
and in 1839 the war had been pushed to such extremities 
that Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia entered into 
a compact to bring about — by compulsion if necessary — a 
cessation of hostilities. Lord Holland and Lord Clarendon 
objected to England's share in the Treaty of July 1840, 
but Lord Palmerston compelled the Cabinet to acquiesce 
by a threat of resignation, and Lord John, at this crisis, 
showed that he was strongly in favour of his colleague's 
policy. The matter, however, was by no means settled, for 
once more a grave division of opinion in the party arose as 



I20 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

to the wisdom of practically throwing away our alliance 
with France. Althorp — now Lord Spencer — reminded his 
former colleagues that that nation was most fitted to be our 
ally of any in Europe, on the threefold ground of situation, 
institutions, and civilisation. 

Lord John drew up a memorandum and submitted 
it to his colleagues, in which he recognised the rights of 
France, and proposed to summon her, under given con- 
ditionSj to take measures with the other Powers to pre- 
serve the peace of Europe. The personal ascendency of 
Lord Palmerston on questions of foreign policy was, how- 
ever, already so marked that Lord Melbourne — now his 
brother-in-law, was reluctant to insist on moderation. Lord 
John, however, stood firm, and the breaking up of the 
Government seemed inevitable. During the crisis which 
followed, Lord Palmerston, striking, as was his wont, from his 
own bat, rejected, under circumstances which Mr. Walpole 
has explained in detail in his Life of Lord John Russell, a 
proposal for a conference of the allied Powers. Lord John 
had already entered his protest against any one member of 
the Cabinet being allowed to conduct affairs as he pleased, 
without consultation or control, and he now informed Lord 
Melbourne in a letter dated November i, 1840 — which 
Mr. Walpole prints — that Palmerston's reply to Austria 
compelled him to once more consider his position, as he 
could not defend in the House of Commons measures 
which he thought wrong. Lord Melbourne promptly recog- 
nised that Russell was the only possible leader in the 
Commons, and he induced Lord Palmerston to admit his 
mistake over the despatch to Metternich, and in this way the 
misunderstanding was brought to an end. Meanwhile, the 
fortunes of the war in the East turned against Ibrahim Pasha, 



DIVIDED COUNSELS 121 

and Palmerston's policy, though not his manner of carrying 
it out, was justified. 

The closing years of the Melbourne Administration were 
marked not only by divided counsels, but by actual blunders 
of policy, and in this connection it is perhaps enough to cite 
the Opium war against China and the foolhardy invasion of 
Afghanistan. At home the question of Free Trade was 
coming rapidly to the front, and the Anti-corn Law League, 
which was founded in Manchester in 1838, was already 
beginning to prove itself a power in the land. As far back 
as 1826, Hume had taken up his parable in Parliament 
against the Corn Laws as a blight on the trade of the country ; 
and two years after the Reform Bill was passed he had 
returned to the attack, only to find, however, that the nation 
was still wedded to Protection. Afterwards, year after year, 
Mr. Villiers drew attention to the subject, and moved for an 
inquiry into the working of the Corn Laws. He declared 
that the existing system was opposed by the industry, the 
intelligence, and the commerce of the nation, and at length, 
in a half-hearted fashion, the Government found itself com- 
pelled, if it was to exist at all, to make some attempt to deal 
with the problem. Lord Melbourne, and some at least of 
his colleagues, were but little interested in the question, and 
they failed to gauge the feeling of the country. 

In the spring of 1841 action of some kind grew inevi- 
table, and the Cabinet determined to propose a fixed duty of 
eight shillings per quarter on wheat, and to reduce the 
duty on sugar. Lord John opened the debate on the latter 
proposal in a speech which moved even Greville to 
enthusiasm ; but neither his arguments nor his eloquence 
produced the desired impression on the House, for the 
Government was defeated by thirty-six votes. Everyone 



122 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

expected the Ministry at once to face the question of dis- 
solution or resignation ; but Melbourne was determined to i 
cling to office as long as possible, in spite of the growing 
difficulties and even humiliations of his position. On June 
4, the day on which Lord John was to bring forward his 
proposal for a fixed duty on wheat, Sir Robert Peel carried 
a vote of want of confidence by a majority of one, and, as 
an appeal to the country was at length inevitable, Parlia- 1 
ment was dissolved a few days later. The Melbourne 
Ministry had outstayed its welcome. The manner in which 
it had left Lord Durham in the lurch over his ill-advised 
ordinances had aroused widespread indignation, for the 
multitude at least could not forget the greatness of his 
services to the cause of Reform. If the dissolution had 
come two or three years earlier, the Government might have 
gone to the country without fear ; but in 1841, both at home 
and abroad, their blunders and their vacillation had alien- 
ated confidence, and it was not difficult to forecast the result. 
The General Election brought Lord John a personal 
triumph. He was presented with a requisition signed by 
several thousand persons, asking him to contest the City of 
London, and after an exciting struggle he was returned, 
though with only a narrow majority ; and during the poli- 
tical vicissitudes of the next eighteen years London was 
faithful to him. 

Lord John Russell was essentially a home-loving man, and 
the gloom which bereavement had cast over his life in the 
autumn of 1839 was at best only partially dispelled by the 
close and sympathetic relations with his family. It was, 
therefore, with satisfaction that all his friends, both on his 
own account and that of his motherless young children, 
heard of his approaching second marriage. Immediately 



'A HOST IN himself' I23 

after the election for the City, Lord John was married to Lady 
Fanny ElUot, second daughter of the Earl of Minto, a union 
which brought him lasting happiness. 

Parliament met in the middle of August, and the Govern- 
ment were defeated on the Address by a majority of ninety- 
one, and on August 28 Lord John found himself once more 
out of harness. In his speech in the House of Commons 
announcing the resignation of the Government, he said that 
the Whigs under Lord Grey had begun with the Reform Act, 
and that they were closing their tenure of power by pro- 
posals for the relief of commerce. The truth was, the 
Melbourne Administration had not risen to its opportunities. 
Its fixed duty on corn was a paltry compromise. The 
leaders of the party needed to be educated up to the level 
of the national demands. Opposition was to bring about 
unexpected political combinations and new political oppor- 
tunities, and the years of conflict which were dawning were 
also to bring more clearly into view Lord John Russell's 
claims to the Liberal leadership. When the Melbourne 
Administration was manifestly losing the confidence of 
the nation, Rogers the poet was walking one day with 
the Duke of Wellington in Hyde Park, and the talk turned 
on the political situation. Rogers remarked, 'What a 
powerful band Lord John Russell will have to contend 

with ! There's Peel, Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham ; ' 

and the Duke interrupted him at this point with the laconic 
reply, ' Lord John Russell is a host in himself.' 

Protection had triumphed at the General Election, and 
Sir Robert Peel came to power as champion of the Corn 
Laws. The Whigs had fallen between two stools, for the 
country was not in a humour to tolerate vacillation. The 
Melbourne Cabinet had, in truth, in the years which had 



124 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



witnessed its decline and fall, spoken with the voice of 
Jacob, but stretched forth the hands of Esau. The 
Radicals shook their heads, scouted the Ministry's deplor- 
able efforts at finance, and felt, to say the least, lukewarm 
about their spirited foreign policy. ' I don't thank a man 
for supporting me when he thinks me right,' was the cynical 
confession of a statesman of an earlier generation ; * my 
gratitude is with the man who supports me when he thinks 
me wrong.' Melbourne was doubtless of the same mind ; 
but the man in the crowd, of Liberal proclivities, was, for the 
most part, rather disgusted with the turn which affairs had 
taken, and the polling booths made it plain that he thought 
the Prime Minister wrong, and, that being the case, he was 
not obliging enough to return him to power. The big drum 
had been successfully beaten, moreover, at the General Elec- 
tion by the defenders of all sorts and sizes of vested interests, 
sinecures, monopolies, and the like, and Sir Robert Peel- 
though not without personal misgivings — accordingly suc- 
ceeded Melbourne as First Lord, whilst Stanley, now the 
hope of stern unbending Tories, took Russell's place as 
Secretary for the Colonies. 

The annals of the Peel Administration of course 
lie outside the province of this monograph ; they have 
already been told with insight and vigour in a companion 
volume, and the temptation to wander at a tangent into the 
history of the Queen's reign— especially with Lord John out 
of office — must be resisted in deference to the exigencies of 
space. In the Peel Cabinet the men who had revolted 
under Melbourne, with the exception of the Duke of Rich- 
mond, were rewarded with place and power. Lord Ripon, 
who was spoken of at the time with scarcely disguised con- 
tempt as a man of tried inefficiency, became President of 



THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK 1 25 

the Board of Trade. Sir James Graham, a statesman who 
was becoming somewhat impervious to new ideas, and who 
as a Minister displayed Httle tact in regard to either move- 
ments or men, was appointed Home Secretary. Stanley, 
who had proved himself to be a strong man in the wrong 
camp, and therefore the evil genius of his party, now 
carried his unquestionable skill, and his brilliant powers of 
debate, as well as his imperious temper and contracted 
views, to the service of the Tories. One other man held a 
prominent place in Peel's Cabinet, and proved a tower of 
strength in it — Lord Aberdeen, who was Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs, and who did much to maintain the peace of Europe 
when the Tahiti incident and the Spanish marriages 
threatened embroilment. Lord Aberdeen, from 1841 to 
1846, guided the foreign policy of England with ability and 
discretion, and, as a matter of fact, steered the nation through 
diplomatic quarrels which, if Lord Palmerston had been at 
the Foreign Office, would probably have ended in war. 
This circumstance heightens the irony of his subsequent 
career. 

The outlook, political and social, when Peel took office 
and Russell confronted him as leader of the Opposition, was 
gloomy and full of hazard. The times, in Peel's judgment, 
were ' out of joint,' and this threw party Government out of 
joint and raised issues which confused ordinary minds. 
The old political catchwords ' Peace, retrenchment, and 
reform,' no longer awoke enthusiasm. Civil and religious 
liberty were all very well in their way, but they naturally 
failed to satisfy men and women who were ground down 
by economic oppression, and were famished through lack 
of bread. The social condition of England was deplor- 
able, for, though the Reform Bill had brought in its wake 



126 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

measures of relief for the middle classes, it had left the 
artisans and the peasants almost where it found them. 
In spite of the new Poor Law and other enactments, 
the people were burdened with the curse of bitter and 
hopeless poverty, and the misery and squalor in which 
they were permitted to live threw a menacing shadow 
over the fair promise of the opening years of the young 
Queen's reign. The historians of the period are responsible 
for the statement that in Manchester, for example, one- 
tenth of the population lived in cellars ; even in the rural 
districts, the overcrowding, with all its attending horrors in 
the direction of disease and vice, was scarcely less terrible, 
for in one parish in Dorset thirty-six persons dwelt, on an 
average, in each house. The wonder is, not that the Anti- 
Corn Law League under such circumstances grew strong 
and the demand for the People's Charter rang through the 
land, but that the masses in town and country alike bore the 
harsh servitude of their lot with the patience that was 
common, and with the heroism that was not rare. 

Lord John Russell never refused to admit the ability of 
Peel's Administration. He described it as powerful, popular, 
and successful. He recognised the honesty of his great 
rival, his openness of mind, the courage which he displayed 
in turning a deaf ear to the croakers in his own Cabinet, and 
the genuine concern which he manifested for the unredressed 
grievances of the people. Li his ' Recollections ' he lays 
stress on the fact that Sir Robert Peel did not hesitate, when 
he thought such a step essential to the public welfare, to 
risk the fate of his Ministry on behalf of an unpopular 
measure. Ireland was a stone of stumbling in his path, and 
long after he had parted with his old ideas of Protestant 
ascendency he found himself confronted with the suspicion 



peel's open mind 127 

of the Roman Catholics, who, in Lord John's words, ' obsti- 
nately refused favours at Peel's hands, which they would 
have been willing to accept from a Liberal Administration.' 
The allusion is, of course, to the Maynooth Grant — a measure 
of practical relief to the Irish Catholics, which would, with- 
out doubt, have thrown Sir Robert Peel out of office if he 
had been left to the tender mercies of his own supporters. 
Disraeli was fond of asserting that Peel lacked imagination, 
and there was a measure of truth in the charge. He was a 
great patriotic statesman, haunted by no foolish bugbear of 
consistency, but willing to learn by experience, and cou- 
rageous enough to follow what he believed to be right, with 
unpolitical but patriotic scorn of consequence. Men with 
stereotyped ideas, who persisted in interpreting concession, 
however just, as weakness, and reform, however urgent, as 
revolution, were unable to follow such a leader. 

Peel might lack imagination, but he never lacked courage, 
and the generosity of vision which imposed on courage great 
and difficult tasks of statesmanship. He could educate him- 
self — for he kept an open mind — and was swift to seize and 
to interpret great issues in the affairs of the nation ; but it 
was altogether a different matter for him to educate his party. 
In the spring of 1845, Sir Robert Peel determined to meet 
the situation in Ireland by bold proposals for the education 
of the Catholic priesthood. Almost to the close of the 
eighteenth century the Catholics were compelled by the ex- 
isting laws to train young men intended for the work of the 
priesthood in Ireland in French colleges, since no seminary 
of the kind was permitted in Ireland. The French Revolu- 
tion overthrew this arrangement, and in 1 795, by an Act of the 
Irish Parliament, Maynooth College was founded, and was 
supported by annual grants, which were continued, though 



128 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

not without much opposition, by the Imperial Parliament 
after the Union. On April 3, Sir Robert Peel brought for- 
ward his measure for dealing in a generous manner with the 
needs and claims of this great institution. He proposed 
that the annual grant should be raised from 9,000/. to up- 
wards of 26,000/., that a charter of incorporation should be 
given, and that the trustees should be allowed to hold land 
to the value of 3,000/. a year. He also proposed that the 
new endowment should be a charge upon the Consolidated 
Fund, so that angry discussions of the kind in which bigotry 
and prejudice delight might be avoided. Moreover, in order 
to restore and enlarge the college buildings. Sir Robert 
finally proposed an immediate and separate grant of 30,000/. 
Few statesmen were more sensitive than Peel, but, con- 
vinced of the justice of such a concession, he spoke that 
day amid the angry opposition of the majority of his 
usual supporters and the approving cheers of his ordinary 
opponents. 

Peel was not the man to falter, although his party was in 
revolt. He had gauged the forces which were arrayed 
in Ireland against the authority of Parliament ; he stated 
in his final words on the subject that there was in that 
country a formidable confederacy, which was prepared 
to go any lengths against a hard interpretation of the supre- 
macy of England. ' I do not believe that you can break it 
up by force ; I believe you can do much by acting in a spirit 
of kindness, forbearance, and generosity.' At once a great 
storm of opposition arose in Parliament, on the platform, and 
in the Press. The Carlton Club found itself brought into 
sudden and unexpected agreement with many a little Bethel 
up and down the country, for the champions of ' No Sur- 
render ' in Pall Mall were of one mind with those of ' No 



HOW PEEL TRIUMPHED I 29 

Popery ' in Exeter Hall. Society for the moment, according 
to Harriet Martineau, seemed to be going mad, and she saw 
enough to convince her that it was not the extent of the 
grant that was deprecated so much as an advance in that 
direction at all. Public indignation ran so high that in some 
instances members of Parliament were called upon to resign 
their seats, whilst Dublin — so far at least as its sentiments 
were represented by the Protestant Operative Association — 
was for nothing less than the impeachment of the unhappy 
Prime Minister. Sectarian animosity, whipped into fury by 
rhetorical appeals to its prejudices, encouraged the paper 
trade by interminable petitions to Parliament ; and three 
nights were spent in debate in the Lords and six in the 
Commons over the second reading of the bill. 

Lord John Russell was assailed with threatening letters 
as soon as it was known that he intended to help Peel to 
outweather the storm of obloqu}^ which he was called to 
encounter. Sir Robert's proposals were welcomed by him 
as a new and worthy departure from the old repressive 
policy. It was because he thought that such a measure 
would go far to conciliate the Catholics of Ireland, as well 
as to prove to them that any question which touched their 
interests and welfare was , not a matter of unconcern to the 
statesmen and people of England, that he gave — with a 
loyalty only too rare in public life — his powerful support to 
a Minister who would otherwise have been driven to bay by 
his own followers. It was, in fact, owing to Lord John's 
action that Peel triumphed over the majority of his own 
party, and his speech in support of the Ministry, though 
not remarkable for eloquence, was admirable alike in temper 
and in tact, and was hailed at the moment as a presage of 
victory. ' Peel lives, moves, and has his being through 

K 



130 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Lord John Russell,' was Lord Shaftesbury's comment at 
the moment. Looking back at the crisis from the leisure of 
retirement, Lord John Russell declared that the Maynooth 
Act was a work of wisdom and liberality, and one which 
ought always to be remembered to the honour of the states- 
man who proposed and carried it. The controversy over 
the Maynooth Grant revealed how great was the gulf 
between Peel and the majority of the Tories, and Greville, 
as usual, in his own incisive way hit off the situation. ' The 
truth is that the Government is Peel, that Peel is a Reformer 
and more of a Whig than a Tory, and that the mass of his 
followers are prejudiced, ignorant, obstinate, and selfish.' 
Peel declared that he looked with indifference on a storm 
which he thought partly fanatical and partly religious in its 
origin, and he added that he was careless as to the conse- 
quences which might follow the passing of the Maynooth 
Bill, so far at least as they concerned his own position. 

Meanwhile another and far greater question was coming 
forward with unsuspected rapidity for solution. The summer 
of 1845 was cold and wet, and its dark skies and drenching 
showers were followed by a miserable harvest. With the 
approach of autumn the fields were flooded and the 
farmers in consequence in despair. Although England and 
Scotland suffered greatly, the disaster fell with still greater 
force on Ireland. As the anxious weeks wore on, alarm 
deepened into actual distress, for there arose a mighty 
famine in the land. The potato crop proved a disastrous 
failure, and with the approach of winter starvation joined 
its eloquence to that of Cobden and Bright in their demand 
for the repeal of the Corn Laws. In speaking afterwards of 
that terrible crisis, and of the services which Cobden and 
himself were enabled to render to the nation, John Bright 



cobden's prediction 131 

used these memorable words : ' Do not suppose that I 
wish you to imagine that he and I were the only persons 
engaged in this great question. We were not even the first, 
though afterwards, perhaps, we became before the public 
the foremost, but there were others before us, and we were 
joined, not by scores, but by hundreds, and afterwards by 
thousands, and afterwards by countless multitudes, and 
afterwards famine itself, against which we had warred, joined 
us, and a great Minister was converted, and minorities be- 
came majorities, and finally the barrier was entirely thrown 
down.' 

Quite early in the history of the Anti-Corn-Law League, 
Cobden had predicted, in spite of the apathy and opposition 
which the derided Manchester school of politics then 
encountered, at a time when Peel and Russell alike turned 
a deaf ear to its appeals, that the repeal of the Corn Laws 
would be eventually carried in Parliament by a ' statesman 
of established reputation.' Argument and agitation prepared 
the way for this great measure of practical relief, but the 
multitude were not far from the mark when they asserted 
that it was the. rain that destroyed the Corn Laws.^ The 
imperative necessity of bringing food from abroad if the 
people were not to perish for lack of bread brought both 
Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell almost at the same 
moment to the conclusion that this great economic problem 
must at once be faced. Peel declared in 1847 that towards 
the end of 1845 he had reached the conclusion that the repeal 
of the Corn Laws was indispensable to the public welfare. 

' ' The Corn Law of 18 15 was a copy of the Corn Law of 1670 — so 
little had economic science grown in England during all those years. 
The Corn Law of 1670 imposed a duty on the importation of foreign 
grain which amounted almost literally to a prohibition.' — Sir Robert 
Feel, by Justin M'Carthy, M.P., chapter xii. p. 136. . '^ 

K 3 



132 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

If that was so, he seems to have kept his opinion to himself, 
for as late as November 29, in the memorandum which 
he sent to his colleagues, there is no hint of abolition. On 
the contrary, Sir Robert, who was always fond of setting 
forth three alternatives of action, wrote as follows : ' Time 
presses, and on some definite course we must decide. Shall 
we undertake without suspension to modify the existing 
Corn Law ? Shall we resolve to maintain the existing Corn 
Law? Shall we advise the suspension of that law for a 
limited period ? My opinion is for the last course, admit- 
ting as I do that it involves the necessity for the immediate 
consideration of the alterations to be made in the existing 
Corn Law ; such alterations to take effect after the period of 
suspension. I should rather say it involves the question of 
the principle and degree of protection to agriculture.' * As 
to the justice of the demand for Free Trade, Peel, there can be 
no doubt, was already convinced ; but his party was regarded 
as the stronghold of Protection, and he knew enough of the 
men who sat behind him to be fully ahve to the fact that 
they still clung tenaciously to the fallacies which Adam 
Smith had exploded. ' We had ill luck,' were Lord 
Aberdeen's words to the Queen ; ' if it had not been for the 
famine in Ireland, which rendered immediate measures 
necessary, Sir Robert would have prepaied the party gradu- 
ally for the change.' ^ 

Cobden, it is only fair to state, made no secret of his 
conviction that the question of the repeal of the Corn 
Laws was safer in the hands of Sir Robert than of Lord 
John. Peel might be less versed in constitutional questions, 

* The Croker Papers, edited by Louis Jennings, vol. iii. p. 35. 
"^ Life of the Prince Consort, by Sir Theodore Martin, vol. i. p. 
317. 



THE 'EDINBURGH LETTER' 1 33 

but he was more in touch with the manufacturing classes, 
and more famiUar with economic conditions. Sir Robert, 
however, was sore let and hindered by the weaklings 
of his own Cabinet, and the rats did not disguise their 
intention of quitting the ship. Lord John Russell, who was 
spending the autumn in Scotland, was the first ' responsible 
statesman ' to take decisive action, for whilst Peel, hampered 
by the vacillation and opposition of his colleagues, still 
hesitated, Russell took the world into his confidence in his 
historic 'Edinburgh Letter,' dated November 22, 1845, to 
his constituents in London. It was a bold and uncom- 
promising declaration of policy, for the logic of events had 
at length convinced Lord John that any further delay was 
dangerous. He complained that Her Majesty's Ministers 
had not only met, but separated, without affording the 
nation any promise of immediate relief. He pointed out 
that the existing duties on corn were so contrived that, the 
worse the quality of the wheat, the higher was the duty. 
' When good wheat rises to seventy shillings a quarter, the 
average price of all wheat is fifty-seven or fifty-eight shillings, 
and the duty fourteen or fifteen shillings a quarter. Thus 
the corn barometer points to fair, while the ship is bending 
under a storm.' He reviewed the course of recent legis- 
lation on the subject, and declared that he had for years 
endeavoured to obtain a compromise. He showed that 
Peel had opposed in 1839, 1840, and 1841, even qualified 
concession, and he added the stinging allusion to that states- 
man's attitude on other great questions of still earlier date. 
' He met the proposition for diminished Protection in the 
same way in which he had met the offer of securities for 
Protestant interests in 181 7 and 1825 — in the same way in 
which he met the proposal to allow Manchester, Leeds, and 



134 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Birmingham to send members to Parliament in 1830.' 
Finally, Lord John announced his conviction that it was no 
longer worth while to contend for a fixed duty, and his 
vigorous attack on the Ministry ended with a call to arms. 
' Let us unite to put an end to a system which has been 
proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agri- 
culture, the source of bitter divisions among classes, the 
cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the 
people. The Government appear to be waiting for some 
excuse to give up the present Corn Law Let the people, 
by petition, by address, by remonstrance, afford them the 
excuse they seek.' 

Sir Robert, when this manifesto appeared, had almost 
conquered the reluctance of his own Cabinet to definite 
action ; but his position grew now untenable in conse- 
quence of the panic of Stanley and the Duke of Buccleuch. 
Lord John's speech was quickly followed by a Ministerial 
crisis, and Peel, beset by fightings without and fears 
within his Cabinet, had no alternative but resignation. 
He accordingly relinquished office on December 5, and 
three days later Lord John, much to his own surprise, 
was summoned to Windsor and entrusted with the task 
of forming a new Ministry. He was met by difficulties 
which, in spite of negotiations, proved insurmountable, 
for Howick, who had succeeded in the previous summer 
to his distinguished father's earldom, refused to serve 
with Palmerston. Lord Grey raised another point which 
might reasonably have been conceded, for he urged that 
Cobden, as the leader of the Anti-Corn-Law League, 
ought to have the offer of a seat in the Cabinet. Lord 
John was unable to bring about an amicable understanding. 



THE 'POISONED CHALICE' 1 35 

and therefore, as the year was closing, he was compelled 
to inform her Majesty of the fact, and to hand back 
what Disraeli theatrically described as the ' poisoned 
chalice ' to Sir Robert. ' It is all at an end,' wrote Lord 
John to his wife. ' Power may come, some day or other, in 
a less odious shape.' 



136 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



CHAPTER VII 

FACTION AND FAMINE 

I 846- I 847 

Peel and Free Trade — Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck lead the 
attack — Russell to the rescue — Fall of Peel — Lord John summoned 
to power — Lord John's position in the Commons and in the coun- 
try — The Condition of Ireland question — Famine and its deadly 
work — The Russell Government and measures of relief— Crime and 
coercion — The Whigs and Education — Factory Bill — The case of 
Dr. Hampden. 

Lord Stanley's place in the ' organised hypocrisy,' as the 
Protectionists termed the last Ministry of Sir Robert Peel, 
was taken by Mr. Gladstone. Sir Robert Peel resumed 
office in the closing days of December, and all the members 
of his old Cabinet, on the principle of bowing to the in- 
evitable, returned with him, except the Duke of Buccleuch 
and Lord Stanley, who resolutely declined to have part or lot 
in the new departure which the Premier now felt called upon 
to make. The Duke of Wellington, though hostile to Free 
Trade, determined to stand by Peel ; but he did not disguise 
the fact that his only reason for remaining in office was for 
the sake of the Queen. He declared that he acted as the 
' retained servant of the monarchy,' for he did not wish her 
Majesty to be placed under the necessity of taking members 
of the Anti-Corn-Law League, or, as he put it, 'Cobden 
& Co.,' for her responsible advisers. 



THE queen's speech 1 37 

The opening days of 1846 were full of political excite- 
ment, and were filled with all kinds of rumours. Welling- 
ton, on January 6, wrote : * I don't despair of the Corn Laws,' 
and confessed that he did not know what were the inten- 
tions of Sir Robert Peel concerning them.^ Peel kept his 
own counsel, though the conviction grew that he had 
persuaded himself that in boldness lay the chance as well 
as the duty of the hour. Peel, like Russell, was con- 
verted to Free Trade by the logic of events, and he 
determined at all hazards to avow the new faith that was in 
him. Parliament was opened by the Queen in person on 
January 22, and the Speech from the Throne laid stress on 
the privation and suffering in Ireland, and shadowed forth 
the repeal of prohibitive and the relaxation of protective 
duties. The debate on the Address was rendered memorable 
by Peel's explanations of the circumstances under which the 
recent crisis had arisen. He made a long speech, and the 
tone of it, according to Lord Malmesbury, was half threaten- 
ing and half apologetic. It was a manly, straightforward 
statement of the case, and Sir Robert made it plain that he 
had accepted the views of the Manchester school on the 
Corn Laws, and was prepared to act without further hesita- 
tion on his convictions. One significant admission was 
added. He stated before he sat down that it was ' no easy 
task to insure the harmonious and united action of an 
ancient monarchy, a proud aristocracy, and a reformed 
House of Commons.' 

New interests were, in fact, beginning to find a voice 

in Parliament, and that meant the beginning of the 

principle of readjustment which is yet in progress. A 

few days later the Prime Minister explained his financial 

* The Croker Papers, vol. iii. ch. xxiv. p. 53. 



138 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

plans for the year, and in the course of them he pro- 
posed the gradual repeal of the Corn Laws. Free trade 
in corn was, in fact, to take final effect after an interval 
of three years. Meanwhile the sliding scale was to be 
abandoned in favour of a fixed duty of ten shillings the 
quarter on corn, and other concessions for the relief not 
only of agriculture but of manufactures and commerce were 
announced. The principle of Free Trade was, in fact, 
applied not in one but in many directions, and from that 
hour its legislative triumph was assured. In • the course of 
the protracted debate which followed, Disraeli, with all the 
virulence of a disappointed place-hunter, attacked Sir Robert 
Peel with bitter personalities and barbed sarcasm. On this 
occasion, throwing decency and good taste to the winds, 
and, to borrow a phrase of his own, ' intoxicated with the 
exuberance of his own verbosity,' and with no lack of tawdry 
rhetoric and melodramatic emphasis, he did his best to 
cover with ridicule and to reduce to confusion one of the 
most chivalrous and lofty-minded statesmen of the Queen's 
reign. 

Disraeli's audacity in attack did much to revive the 
drooping courage of the Protectionist party, the leadership 
of which fell for the moment into the hands of Lord George 
Bentinck, a nobleman more renowned at Newmarket than at 
Westminster. Once saddled with authority, Lord George 
developed some capacity for politics ; but his claims as a 
statesman were never serious, though Disraeli, in the poli- 
ical biography which he published shortly after his friend's 
sudden death, gives him credit for qualities of mind of which 
the nation at large saw little evidence. After long and 
tedious discussion, extending over some twenty nights, the 
Free Trade Bill was carried through the Commons by a 



OUTCAST PROTECTIONISTS 139 

majority of ninety-eight votes, and in the Lords it passed 
the second reading by forty-seven votes. Croker— true to 
the dismal suggestion of his name— promptly took up his 
parable against Sir Robert. He declared that the repeal of 
the Corn Laws meant a schism in the great landed interest 
and broad acres, in his view, were the only solid foundation 
on which the government of the nation could possibly be 
based. He asked, how was it possible to resist the attack 
on the Irish Church and the Irish Union after the surrender 
of the Corn Laws ? He wanted to know how primogeniture, 
the Bishops, the House of Lords, and the Crown itself were 
to be maintained, now that the leader of the Conservative 
party had truckled to the League. Sir Robert Peel, he 
added, had imperilled these institutions of the country more 
than Cobbett or O'Connell ; he had broken up the old 
interests, divided the great families, and thrown personal 
hostility into the social life of half the counties of England 
—and all to propitiate Richard Cobden. Such was the 
bitter cry of the outcast Protectionist, and similar vapour- 
ings arose in cliques and clubs all over the land. The 
abolition of the Corn Laws was the last measure of Sir 
Robert Peel's political life, and he owed the victory, which 
was won amid the murmurs and threats of his own followers, 
to the support which his political antagonists gave him, 
under the leadership of Lord John Russell, who recognised 
both the wisdom and the expediency of Sir Robert's course. 
Meanwhile the dark winter of discontent which priva- 
tion had unhappily brought about in Ireland had been 
marked by many crimes of violence, and at length the 
Government deemed it imperative to ask Parliament to 
grant them additional powers for the suppression of outrage. 
The measure met with the opposition alike of Lord John 



I40 LORD JfJlIN RUSSELL 

Russell and Danid O'Conncll. The Government moved 
the second reading of the Irish Coercion Bill, and the Pro- 
tectionists, who knew very well not only the views of l^aniel 
O'Connell, but of Smith O'JJrien, saw their opportunity and 
promptly took it. Lord George Bentinck had supported 
the Coercion Bill on its introduction in the spring, and had 
done so in the most unmistakable terms. He was not the 
man, however, to forego the mean luxury of revenge, and 
neither he nor Disraeli could forgive what they regarded as 
Sir Robert's great betrayal of the landed interest. Pie now 
had the audacity to assert that Peel had lost the confidence 
of every honest man both within and without the House of 
Commons, and in spite of his assurances of support he 
ranged himself for the moment with Russell and O'Connell 
to crush the Administration. The division took place on 
June 25, and in a House of 571 members the Ministry was 
defeated by a majority of 73. The defeat of the Govern- 
ment was so crushing that Whigs and Protectionists alike^ on 
the announcement of the figures, were too much taken aback 
to cheer. ' Anything,' said Sir Robert, ' is preferable to main- 
taining ourselves in office without a full measure of the con- 
fidence of this House.' 

Lord John had triumphed with the help of the Irish, 
whom Peel had alienated ; but the great Minister's downfall 
had in part been accomplished by the treachery of those 
who abandoned him with clamour and evil-speaking in the 
hour of need, Defeat was followed within a week by 
resignation, and on July 4 Peel, writing from the leisured 
seclusion of Drayton Manor, 'in the loveliest weather,' 
was magnanimous enough to say, ' I have every disposition 
to forgive my enemies for having conferred on me the bless- 
ing of the loss of power.' Lord John was summoned to 



THE RUSSELL CABINET I4I 

Windsor, and kissed hands on July 6. He became Prime 
Minister when the condition of affairs was gloomy and 
menacing, and the following passage from his wife's 
journal, written on July 14, conjures up in two or three 
words a vivid picture of the difficulties of the hour : * John 
has much to distress him in the state of the country. God 
grant him success in his labours to amend it ! Famine, 
fever, trade failing, and discontent growing are evils which 
it requires all his resolution, sense of duty, and love for the 
public to face.' Lord Palmerston was, of course, inevitable 
as Foreign Secretary in the new Administration ; Sir Charles 
Wood became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Sir George 
Grey, Home Secretary. Earl Grey's scruples were at length 
satisfied, and he became Secretary to the Colonies ; whilst 
Lord Clarendon took office as President of the Board of 
Trade, and Lord Lansdowne became President of the 
Council. Among the lesser lights of the Ministry were Sir 
J. C. Hobhouse, Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. I<ox Maule, Lord 
Morpeth, and Mr. (afterwards Lord) Macaulay. Sir James 
Graham was offered the Governor-( Generalship of India, but 
he had aspirations at Westminster, which, however, were 
never fulfilled, and declined the offer. The Tory party was 
demoralised and split up into cliques by suspicion and in- 
dignation. Stanley was in the House of Lords by this time, 
Peel was in disgrace, and Lord George Bentinck was already 
beginning to cut a somewhat ridiculous figure, whilst nobody 
as yet was quite prepared to take Disraeli seriously. ' We 
are left masters of the field,' wrote Palmerston, with a touch 
of characteristic humour, 'not only on account of our own 
merits, which, though we say it ourselves, are great, but by 
virtue of the absence of any efficient competitors.' 

The new Ministry began well. Lord John's address to 



142 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

his constituents in the City made an excellent impression, 
and was worthy of the man and the occasion. ' You may be 
assured that I shall not desert in office the principles to 
which I adhered when they were less favourably received. 
I cannot indeed claim the merit either of having carried mea- 
sures of Free Trade as a Minister, or of having so prepared 
the public mind by any exertions of mine as to convert 
what would have been an impracticable attempt into a certain 
victory. To others belong those distinctions. But I have 
endeavoured to do my part in this great work according to 
my means and convictions, first by proposing a temperate 
relaxation of the Corn Laws, and afterwards, when that 
measure has been repeatedly rejected, by declaring in favour 
of total repeal, and using every influence I could exert to 
prevent a renewal of the struggle for an object not worth 
the cost of conflict. The Government of this country ought 
to behold with an impartial eye the various portions of the 
community engaged in agriculture, in manufactures, and in 
commerce. The feeling that any of them is treated with 
injustice provokes ill-will, disturbs legislation, and diverts 
attention from many useful and necessary reforms. Great 
social improvements are required : public education is mani- 
festly irriperfect ; the treatment of criminals is a problem 
yet undecided ; the sanitary condition of our towns and vil- 
lages has been grossly neglected. Our recent discussions 
have laid bare the misery, the discontent, and outrages of 
Ireland ; they are too clearly authenticated to be denied, 
too extensive to be treated by any but the most comprehen- 
sive means.' 

Lord John had been thirty-three years in the House of 
Commons when he became for the first time Prime Minister. 
The distinction of rank and of an historic name gave him in 



EVER A FIGHTER 1 43 

1 813, when government by great families was still more than 
a phrase, a splendid start. The love of liberty which he 
inherited as a tradition grew strong within him, partly 
through his residence in Edinburgh under Dugald Stewart, 
partly through the generous and stimulating associations 
of Holland House, but still more, perhaps, because of the 
tyranny of which he was an eye-witness during his travels as 
a youth in Italy and Spain at a period when Europe lay under 
the heel of Napoleon. Lord John was ever a fighter, and the 
political conflicts of his early manhood against the triple alli- 
ance of injustice, bigotry, and selfish apathy in the presence of 
palpable social abuses lent ardour to his convictions, tenacity 
to his aims, and boldness to his attitude in public life. Al- 
though an old Parliamentary hand, he was in actual years only 
fifty-four when he came to supreme office in the service of 
the State, but he had already succeeded in placing great 
measures on the Statute Book, and he had also won recog- 
nition on both sides of the House as a leader of fearless 
courage, open mind, and great fertility of resource alike in 
attack and in defence. Peel, his most formidable rival on 
the floor of the Commons, hinted that Lord John Russell 
was small in small things, but, he added significantly that, 
when the issues grew great, he was great also. Everyone 
who looks at Lord John's career in its length and breadth 
must admit the justice of such a criticism. On one oc- 
casion he himself said, in speaking of the first Lord Halifax, 
that the favourite of Charles 11. had 'too keen a perception of 
errors and faults to act well with others,' and the remark 
might have been applied to himself. There were times 
when Lord John, by acting hastily on the impulse of the 
moment, landed his colleagues in serious and unlooked for 
difficulties, and sometimes it happened that in his anxiety to 



144 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

clear his own soul by taking an independent course, he com- 
promised to a serious extent the position of others. 

Lord Melbourne's cynical remark, to the effect that no- 
body did anything very foolish except from some strong prin- 
ciple, carries with it a tribute to motive as well as a censure 
on action, and it is certain that the promptings to which Lord 
John yielded in the questionable phases of his public career 
were not due to the adroit and calculating temper of self- 
interest. His weaknesses were indeed, after all, trivial in com- 
parison to his strength. He rose to the great occasion and 
was inspired by it. All that was formal and hesitating in 
manner and speech disappeared, and under the combined 
influence of the sense of responsibility and the excitement 
of the hour ' languid Johnny,' to borrow Bulwer Lytton's 
phrase, ' soared to glorious John.' Palmerston, like Mel- 
bourne, was all things to all men. His easy nonchalance, 
sunny temper, and perfect familiarity with the ways of the 
world and the weaknesses of average humanity, gave him 
an advantage which Lord John, with his nervous tempera- 
ment, indifferent health, fastidious tastes, shy and rather 
distant bearing, and uncompromising convictions, never 
possessed. Russell's ethical fervour and practical energetic 
bent of mind divided him sharply from politicians who 
lived from hand to mouth, and were never consumed 
by a zeal for reform in one direction or another ; and 
these qualities sometimes threw him into a position of 
singular isolation. The wiles and artifices by which less 
proud and less conscientious men win power, and the op- 
portune compliments and unwatched concessions by which 
too often they retain it, lay amongst the things to which he 
refused to stoop. 

Men might think Lord John taciturn, angular, abrupt, 



HIS PRACTICAL SAGACITY I45 

tenacious, and dogmatic, but it was impossible not to 
recognise his honesty, public spirit, pluck in the presence 
of difficulty, and high interpretation of the claims of public 
duty which marked his strenuous and indomitable career. 
His qualifications for the post of Prime Minister were not 
open to challenge. He was deeply versed in constitu- 
tional problems, and had received a long and varied train- 
ing in the handling of great affairs. He possessed to an 
enviable degree the art of lucid exposition, and could 
render intricate proposals luminous to the pubUc mind. 
He was a shrewd Parliamentary tactician, as well as a states- 
man who had worthily gained the confidence of the nation. 
He was ready in debate, swift to see and to seize the 
opportunity of the hour. He was full of practical sagacity, 
and his personal character lent weight to his position in 
the country. In the more militant stages of his career, 
and especially when he was fighting the battles of Parlia- 
mentary reform and religious liberty, he felt the full brunt 
of that 'sullen resistance to innovation,' as well as that 
' unalterable perseverance in the wisdom of prejudice,' which 
Burke declared was characteristic of the English race. The 
natural conservatism of growing years, it must be frankly 
admitted, led eventually in Lord John's case, as in that of 
the majority of mankind, to the slackening of interest in 
the new problems of a younger generation, but to the ex- 
treme verge of life he remained far too great a statesman 
and much too generous a man ever to lapse into the position 
of a mere laudator temporis adi. Lord John did not allow 
the few remaining weeks of a protracted and exhaustive 
session to elapse without a vigorous attempt to push the 
principle of Free Trade to its logical issues. He passed a 
measure which rendered the repeal of the Corn Laws total 

L 



146 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

and immediate, and he carried, with the support of Peel 
and in spite of the opposition of Bentinck and DisraeU, the 
aboUtion of protection to sugar grown in the British 
Colonies. 

Ireland quickly proved itself to be a stone of stumbling 
and a rock of offence to the new Administration. Lord 
John's appointment of Lord Bessborough— his old col- 
league, Duncannon, in the Committee on Reform in 1830 — 
as viceroy was popular, for he was a resident Irish landlord, 
and a man who was genuinely concerned for the welfare of 
the people. O'Connell trusted Lord Bessborough, and that, 
in the disturbed condition of the country, counted for much. 
The task of the new viceroy was hard, even with such 
support, and though Bessborough laboured manfully and 
with admirable tact to better the social condition of the 
people and to exorcise the spirit of discord, the forces 
arrayed against him proved resistless when famine came to 
their aid. As the summer slipped past, crime and outrage 
increased, and the prospect for the approaching winter grew 
not merely gloomy but menacing. Peel had been turned out 
of office because of his Irish Arms Bill, and Bessborough 
was no sooner installed in Dublin than he made urgent 
representations to the Cabinet in Downing Street as to the 
necessity of adopting similar repressive measures, in view of 
the prevaiHng lawlessness and the contempt for life and pro- 
perty which in the disaffected districts were only too common. 
In August the crisis was already so acute that the Government, 
yielding to the fears of its Irish advisers, stultified itself by 
proposing the renewal of the Arms Bill until the following 
spring. The step was ill advised, and provoked much hostile 
criticism. Lord John did not relish the measure, but Lord 
Bessborough declared that Ireland could not be governed for 



THE IRONY OF THE SITUATION 147 

the moment without it, and as he also talked of throwing 
up his appointment, and was supported in this view of the 
situation by Mr. Labouchere (afterwards Lord Taunton), who 
at that time was Chief Secretary, the Prime Minister gave 
way and introduced in the House of Commons proposals 
which were out of keeping with his own antecedents, and 
which he personally disliked. In speaking of Sir Robert 
Peel's Coercion Bill in his published ' Recollections,' Lord 
John makes no secret of his own attitude towards the measure. 
' I objected to the Bill on Irish grounds. I then thought, 
and I still think, that it is wrong to arrest men and put 
them in prison on the ground that they may be murderers 
and housebreakers. They may be, on the other hand, 
honest labourers going home from their work.' On the 
contrary, he thought that every means ought to be promptly 
taken for discovering the perpetrators of crime and bringing 
them to justice, and he also believed in giving the authorities 
on the spot ample means of dealing with the reign of terror 
which agrarian outrages had established. 

If O'Connell had been at Lord John's side at that juncture, 
England might have sent a practical message of good-will to 
Ireland instead of falling back on the old policy of coercion. 
O'Connell had learnt to trust Russell — as far, at least, as it was 
possible for a leader of the Irish people to trust a Whig states- 
man — and Russell, on the other hand, was beginning to 
understand not merely O'Connell, but the forces which lay 
behind him, and which rendered him, quite apart from his own 
eloquence and gifts, powerful. Unfortunately, the Liberator 
was by this time broken in health, and the Young Ireland 
party were already in revolt against his authority, a circum- 
stance which, in itself, filled the Premier with misgivings, and 
led him to give way, however reluctantly, to the demand of 

L 2 



148 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the viceroy for repressive measures. Lord John was, in fact, 
only too well aware that force was no remedy. He ^\^shed, 
as much as O'Connell, to root up the causes which produced 
crime. Young Ireland, however, seemed determined to kick 
over the traces at the very time when the Liberator was in- 
ducing the Whigs to look at the question in a practical 
manner. Lord John knew, to borrow his ow^n expression, 
that the ' armoury of penal legislation was full of the 
weapons of past battles, and yet the victory of order and 
peace had not been gained.' The Liberal party set its face 
against coercion in any shape or form, and the Government 
withdrew a proposal w^hich they ought never to have intro- 
duced. This course had scarcely been taken when a new 
and terrible complication of the social problem in Ireland 
arose. 

Fam_ine suddenly made its presence felt, and did so in 
a manner which threw the privation and scarcity of the 
previous winter altogether into the shade. The potato crop 
was a disastrous failure, and, as the summer waned, the 
distress of an impoverished and thriftless race grew acute. 
The calamity was as crushing as it was rapid. 'On July 27,' 
are Father Mathew's words, ' I passed from Cork to Dublin, 
and this doomed plant bloomed in all the luxuriance of an 
abundant harvest. Returning on August 3 I beheld with 
sorrow one wide waste of putrefying vegetation.' A million 
and a half of acres were at the moment under cultivation, 
and the blight only spared a quarter of them, whilst, to make 
matters worse, the oat crop, by an unhappy coincidence, 
proved to a startling extent insufficient. The financial loss 
in that disastrous harvest, in the reckoning of experts, 
amounted to between fifteen and sixteen millions sterling. 
Fever and dysentery made fatal inroads on the dwindling 



THE IRISH FAMINE 1 49 

strength of the gaunt and famished peasantry, and in one 
district alone, out of a population of 62,000 inhabitants, 
no less than 5,000 persons died, directly or indirectly, of 
starvation in the course of three months. ' All our thoughts,' 
wrote O'Connell, ' are engrossed with two topics — endeavour- 
ing to keep the people from outbreaks, and endeavouring to 
get food for them.' In many instances the landlords seemed 
robbed of the characteristics of ordinary humanity, for the 
ruthless process of eviction was carried on with a high hand, 
and old men and children were left unsheltered as well as 
unfed. 

Property had neglected its duties, but, as usual, did not 
neglect its rights, and in that terrible crisis it overrode the 
rights of humanity. Many of the landowners, however, 
manfully did their best to stay the plague, but anything 
which they could accomplish seemed a mockery amid the 
widespread distress. Readers of Sir Gavan Duffy's ' Four 
Years of Irish History ' will recall his vivid description of 
the manner in which some of the landowners, however, saw 
their cruel opportunity, and accoixlingiy 'closed on the 
people with ejectments, turned them on the road, and plucked 
down their roof-trees,' and also that still more painful 
passage which describes how women with dead children in 
their arms were seen begging for a coffin to bury them. 
Relief committees were, of course, started ; the Friends, in 
particular, busied themselves in practical efforts to cope with 
the distress, and Mr. W. E, Forster, who went to Ireland to 
distribute relief, declared that his wonder was, as he passed 
from village to village, not that the people died, but that so 
many contrived to live. 

The Russell Government met the crisis with courage, 
though scarcely with adequate understanding. Ireland 



I50 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

remembered with bitterness their Arms Bill and their re- 
pressive measures. PubHc feeling ran high over some of 
their proposals, for the people resented Lord John's modifi- 
cation of Sir Robert Peel's plan by which the cost of public 
works was to be defrayed by the State and district in which 
employment was given. Lord John determined that the 
cost should be met in the first instance by Government 
loans, which were to be repaid with an almost nominal 
interest by the people of the district. This was interpreted 
to mean that Ireland was to bear her own burdens, and in 
her impoverished state was to be saddled with the financial 
responsibilities inseparable from so pitiable a collapse of 
prosperity. Bread riots and agrarian disturbances grew 
common, and the Government met them with rather more than 
becoming sternness, instead of dealing promptly with the land- 
tenure system which lay at the root of so much of the misery. 
At the beginning of the session of 1847 it was stated that 
10,000,000/. would be required to meet the exigencies of the 
situation. Lord George Bentinck proposed a grant of 
16,000,000/. for the construction of Irish railways, but Lord 
John made the question one of personal confidence in him- 
self, and threatened resignation if it passed. His chief 
objection to the proposal was based on the fact that seventy- 
five per cent, of the money spent in railway construction 
would not reach the labouring classes. Lord George Ben- 
tinck's motion was rejected by a sweeping majority, though 
at a subsequent stage in the session the Government con- 
sented to advance a substantial sum to three Irish railways — 
a concession which exposed them to the usual taunts of in- 
consistency. 

Measures were also introduced for promoting emigration 
to the colonies, and for the suspension of certain clauses of 



MEASURES OF RELIEF 151 

the Navigation Laws which hindered the importation of 
foreign corn. At one time during the distress there were 
no less than six hundred thousand men employed on pubhc 
works in Ireland, and the Government found it no easy 
task to organise this vast army of labour, or to prevent 
abuses. Lord Bessborough urged that the people should 
be employed in the improvement of private estates, but 
Lord John met this proposal with disapproval, though he at 
length agreed that the drainage of private land should come 
within the scope of public works. It was further determined 
to lend money in aid of the improvement of private property, 
the operation of the Irish Poor Law was also extended, and 
in other directions energetic measures were taken for the 
relief of the prevailing destitution. Lord John was a keen 
observer both of men and of movements, and the character- 
istics of the peasantry, and more particularly the personal 
helplessness of the people, and the lack of concerted action 
among them, impressed him. ' There are some things,' he 
declared, ' which the Crown cannot grant and which Parlia- 
ment cannot enact — the spirit of self-reliance and the spirit 
of co-operation. I must say plainly that I should indeed 
despair of this task were it not that I think I see symptoms 
in the Irish people both of greater reliance on their own 
energies and exertions, and of greater intelligence to co- 
operate with each other. Happy will it be, indeed, if the 
Irish take for their maxim, " Help yourselves and Heaven 
will help you," and then I think they will find there is some 
use in adversity.' 

Lord John Russell's Irish policy has often been mis- 
understood, and not seldom misrepresented, but no one 
who looks all the facts calmly in the face, or takes into 
account the difficulties which the famine threw in his path, 



152 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

will be inclined to harsh criticism. Lady Russell's journal 
at this period reveals how great was her husband's anxiety 
in view of the evil tidings from Ireland, and one extract may 
be allowed to speak for itself. After stating that her husband 
has much to distress him in the state of the country, these 
words follow : ' God grant him success in his labours to 
amend it — famine, fever, trade failing, and discontent grow- 
ing are evils which it requires all his resolution, sense of 
duty, and love for the public to face. I pray that he may, 
and believe that he will, one day be looked back to as the 
greatest benefactor of unhappy Ireland.' When once the 
nature of the calamity became apparent, Lord John never 
, relaxed his efforts to grapple with the emergency, and, 
though not a demonstrative man, there is proof enough that 
he felt acutely for the people, and laboured, not always per- 
haps wisely, but at least well, for the amelioration of their 
lot. He was assailed with a good deal of personal abuse, 
and was credited with vacillation and apathy, especially in 
Ireland, where his opponents, acting in the capacity of jury- 
men at inquests on the victims of the famine, sometimes 
went so far as to bring in a verdict of wilful murder against 
the Prime Minister. It is easy enough after the event to 
point out better methods than those devised at the imperious 
call of the moment by the Russell Administration, but there 
are few fair-minded people in the present day who would 
venture to assert that justice and mercy were not in the as- 
cendent during a crisis which taxed to the utmost the resources 
of practical statesmanship. 

The new Parliament assembled in November, and a Com- 
mittee of both Houses was appointed to take into considera- 
tion the depressed condition of trade, for symptoms of un- 
mistakable distress were apparent in the great centres of 



LORD CLARENDON IN IRELAND 1 53 

industry. Ireland, moreover, still blocked the way, and Lord 
Clarendon, who had succeeded to the viceroyalty, alarmed 
at the condition of affairs, pressed for extraordinary powers. 
The famine by this time was only a memory, but it had left 
a large section of the peasantry in a sullen and defiant mood. 
As a consequence stormy restlessness and open revolt made 
themselves felt. Armed mobs, sometimes five hundred and 
even a thousand strong, wandered about in lawless fashion, 
pounced upon corn ,and made raids on cattle, and it seemed 
indeed at times as if life as well as property was imperilled. 
Lord Clarendon was determined to make the disaffected feel 
that the law could not be set aside with impunity. He 
declared that the majority of these disturbers of the peace 
were not in actual distress, and he made no secret of his 
opinion that their object was not merely intimidation but 
plunder. ' I feel,' were his words as the autumn advanced, 
' as if I was at the head of a provisional government in a 
half-conquered country.' 

It is easy to assert that Lord Clarendon took a panic- 
stricken view of the situation, and attempts have again and 
again been made to mitigate, if not to explain away, the 
dark annals of Irish crime. The facts, however, speak for 
themselves, and they seemed at the moment to point to 
such a sinister condition of affairs that Lord John Russell 
felt he had no option but to adopt repressive measures. 
Sir George Grey stated in Parliament that the number 
of cases of fatal bloodshed during the six summer 
months of 1846 was sixty-eight, whilst in the correspond- 
ing period in 1847 it had increased to ninety-six. Shooting 
with intent to slay, which in the six months of 1846 had 
numbered fifty-five, now stood at 126. Robbery under 
arms had also grown with ominous rapidity, for in the 



154 > LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

contrasted half-years of 1846 and 1847 deeds of violence 
of this kind were 207 and 530 respectively, whilst outrage in 
another of its most cruel and despicable forms — the firing 
of dweUing-houses — revealed, under the same conditions of 
time, 116 acts of incendiarism in 1847, as against fifty-one 
in the previous year. The disaffected districts of Clare, 
Limerick, and Tipperary made the heaviest contribution to 
this dismal catalogue of crime ; but far beyond their borders 
though with diminished force, the lawless spirit prevailed. 

Mr. Spencer Walpole, in his standard and authoritative 
' Life of Lord John Russell,' has shown, by an appeal to his 
correspondence with Lord Clarendon, how reluctant the 
Prime Minister was to bring forward a new Arms Bill. He 
has also made it plain that it was only the logic of events 
which finally convinced the Prime Minister of the necessity 
in any shape for such a measure. Mr. Walpole has also vindi- 
cated, at considerable length. Lord John from the familiar 
charge of having adopted in power the proposals which led to 
the overthrow of the Peel Administration. He lays stress on 
the fact that the Arms Bill, which the Government carried 
at the close of 1847 by a sweeping majority, was, to a note- 
worthy extent, different from that which Sir Robert sought to 
impose on Ireland twelve months earlier, and which the 
Whigs met with strenuous and successful opposition. In 
Mr. Walpole's words, the new proposals 'did not contain 
any provision for compensating the victims of outrages at 
the expense of the ratepayers ; they did not render per- 
sons congregated in public-houses or carrying arms liable 
to arrest ; above all, they did not comprise the brutal clause 
which made persons out of doors at night liable to trans- 
portation.' The condition of Ireland was, indeed, so 
menacing that the majority of the English people of all 



JOHN BRIGHT AND IRISH AFFAIRS 1 55 

shades of political opinion were of one mind as to the 
necessity for stern measures. Sir Robert Peel, with no less 
candour than chivalry, declared that the best reparation 
which could be made to the last Government would be 
to assist the present Government in passing such a law. 
Perhaps still more significant were the admissions of Mr. John 
Bright. At the General Election the young orator had 
been returned to Parliament, not for a Sleepy Hollow like 
Durham, which had first sent him, but for the command- 
ing constituency of Manchester, and almost at once he 
found himself in opposition to the views of a vast number 
of the inhabitants. He was requested to present a petition 
against the bill signed by more than 20,000 persons 
in Manchester. In doing so he took the opportunity of ex- 
plaining in the House of Commons the reasons which made 
it impossible for him — ^^friend of peace and goodwill as he 
assuredly was — to support its prayer. He declared that the 
unanimous statements of all the newspapers, the evidence 
of men of all parties connected with Ireland, as well as the 
facts which were placed before them with official authority, 
made it plain beyond a doubt that the ordinary law was 
utterly powerless, and, therefore, he felt that the case of the 
Government, so far as the necessity for such a bill was 
concerned, was both clear and perfect. 

Mr. Bright drew attention to the fact that assassinations 
in Ireland were not looked upon as murders, but rather as 
executions ; and that some of them at least were not due 
to sudden outbursts of passion, but were planned with 
deliberation and carried out in cold blood. He saw no 
reason to doubt that in certain districts public sentiment 
was ' depraved and thoroughly vitiated ; ' and he added 
that, since the ordinary law had failed to meet the emergency 



156 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the Government had a case for the demand they made 
for an extension of their present powers, and he thought 
that the bill before the House was the less to be opposed 
since, whilst it strengthened the hands of the Executive, it 
did not greatly exceed or infringe the ordinary law. Mr. Bright 
at the same time, it is only fair to add, made no secret of his 
own conviction that the Government had not grappled with 
sufficient courage with its difficulties, and he complained of 
the delay which had arisen over promised legislation of a 
remedial character. 

Lord John himself was persuaded, some time before 
Mr. Bright made this speech, that it was useless to attempt 
to meet the captious and selfish objections on the question of 
agrarian reform of the landlord class ; and, as a matter of fact, 
he had already drawn up, without consulting anyone, the 
outline of a measure which he described to Lord Clarendon 
as a ' plan for giving some security and some provision to 
the miserable cottiers, who are now treated as brute beasts.' 
Years before — to be exact, in the spring of 1844 — he had de- 
clared in the House of Commons that, whilst the Government 
of England was, as it ought to be, a Government of opinion, 
the Government of Ireland was notoriously a Government 
of force. Gradually he was forced to the view that centuries 
of oppression and misunderstanding, of class hatred and 
opposite aims, had brought about a social condition which 
made it necessary that judicial authority should have a voice 
between landlord and tenant in every case of ejectment. 
Lord John's difficulties in dealing with Ireland were compli- 
cated by the distrust of three-fourths of the people of the 
good intentions of Enghsh statesmanship. Political agitators, 
great and small, of the Young Ireland school, did their best 
to deepen the suspicions of an impulsive and ignorant 



THE TREASON FELONY ACT 1 57 

peasantry against the Whigs, and Lord John was personally 
assailed, until he became a sort of bogie-man to the lively 
and undisciplined imagination of a sensitive but resentful 
race. 

Even educated Irishmen of a later generation have, 
with scarcely an exception, failed to do justice either to the 
dull weight of prejudice and opposition with which Lord 
John had to contend in his efforts to help their country, or 
to give him due credit for the constructive statesmanship 
which he brought to a comphcated and disheartening task.^ 
Lord John Russell was, in fact, in some directions not only 
in advance of his party but of his times ; and, though it has 
long been the fashion to cavil at his Irish policy, it ought not 
to be forgotten, in common fairness, that he not only passed 
the Encumbered Estates Act of 1848, but sought to introduce 
the principle of compensation to tenants for the improve- 
ments which they had made on their holdings. Vested 
interests proved, however, too powerful, and Ireland stood 
in her own light by persistent sedition. The revolutionary 
spirit was abroad in 1848 not only in. France, but in other 
parts of Europe, and the Irish, under Mr. Smith O'Brien, 
Mr. John Mitchel, and less responsible men, talked at random, 
with the result that treasonable conspiracy prevailed, and the 
country was brought to the verge of civil war. The Irish Govern- 
ment was forced by hostile and armed movements to pro- 
claim certain districts in which rebellion was already rampant. 
The Treason Felony Act made it illegal, and punishable with 
penal servitude, to write or speak in a manner calculated to 
provoke rebellion against the Crown. This extreme stipula- 

* Judge O'Connor Morris, in his interesting retrospect, Memories 
and Thoughts of a Life^ just published, whilst severely criticising the 
Whig attitude towards Ireland, admits that Russell's Irish policy was 
not only ' well-meant,' but in the main successful. 



158 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

tion was made at the instance of Lord Campbell. Such an 
invasion of freedom of speech was not allowed to pass un- 
challenged, and Lord John, who winced under the necessity 
of repression, admitted the force of the objection, so far as 
to declare that this form of irksome restraint should not be 
protracted beyond the necessity of the hour. He was not 
the man to shirk personal danger, and therefore, in spite of 
insurrection and panic, and the threats of agitators who were 
seeking to compass the repeal of the Union by violent mea- 
sures, he went himself to Dublin to consult with Lord 
Clarendon, and to gather on the spot his own impressions 
of the situation. He found the country once more over- 
shadowed by the prospects of famine, and he came to the 
conclusion that the population was too numerous for the 
soil, and subsequently passed a measure for promoting aided 
emigration. He proposed also to assist from the public 
funds the Roman Catholic clergy, whose livelihood had 
grown precarious through the national distress ; but, in 
deference to strong Protestant opposition, this method of ame- 
lioration had to be abandoned. The leaders of the Young 
Ireland party set the authorities at defiance, and John 
Mitchel, a leader who advocated an appeal to physical force, 
and Smith O'Brien, who talked wildly about the establish- 
ment of an Irish Republic, were arrested, convicted, and 
transported. O'Connell himself declared that Smith 
O'Brien was an exceedingly weak man, proud and self-con- 
ceited and 'impenetrable to advice.' ' You cannot be sure 
of him for half an hour.' The force of the movement was 
broken by cliques and quarrels, until the spirit of disaffection 
was no longer formidable. In August, her Majesty dis- 
played in a marked way her personal interest in her Irish 
subjects by a State visit to Dublin. The Queen was re- 



SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS 1 59 

ceived with enthusiasm, and her presence did much to weaken 
still further the already diminishing power of sedition. 

The question of education lay always close to the heart 
of Lord John Russell, who found time even amid the stress 
of 1847 to advance it. The Melbourne Administration had 
vested the management of Parliamentary grants in aid of 
education in a committee of the Privy Council. In spite of 
suspicion and hostility, which found expression both in Par- 
liament and in ecclesiastical circles, the movement extended 
year by year and slowly pervaded with the first beginnings 
of culture the social life of the people. Tord John had 
taken an active part in establishing the authority of the Privy 
Council in education ; he had watched the rapid growth of 
its influence, and had not forgotten to mark the defects which 
had come to light during the six years' working of the system. 
He therefore proposed to remodel it, and took steps in 
doing so to better the position of the teacher, as well as to 
render primary education more efficient. Paid pupil teachers 
accordingly took the place of unpaid monitors, and the 
opportunity of gaining admittance after this practical appren- 
ticeship to training colleges, where they might be equipped 
for the full discharge of the duties of their calling, was 
thrown open to them. As a further inducement, teachers 
who had gone through this collegiate training received a 
Government grant in addition to the usual salary. Grants 
were also for the first time given to schools which passed 
with success through the ordeal of official inspection. 

The passing of the Factory Bill was another effort in the 
practical redress of wrongs to which Lord John Russell lent 
his powerful aid. The measure, which will always be 
honourably associated with the names of Lord Shaftesbury 
and Mr. Fielden, was a victory for labour which was hailed 



l6o LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

with enthusiasm by artisans and operatives throughout the 
land. It came as a measure of practical relief, not merely 
to men, but to upwards of three hundred and sixty-three 
thousand women and children, employed in monotonous 
tasks in mill and manufactory. Another change which Lord 
John Russell was directly instrumental in bringing about 
was the creation of the Poor Law Commission into a Minis- 
terial Department, responsible to Parliament, and able to 
explain its work and to defend its policy at Westminster, 
through the lips of the President of the Poor Law Board. 
Regulations were at the same time made for workhouse con- 
trol, meetings of guardians, and the like. The great and 
ever-growing needs of Manchester were recognised in 1847 
by the creation of the Bishopric. Parliament was dissolved 
on July 23, and as the adoption of Free Trade had left 
the country . for the moment without any great question 
directly before it, no marked political excitement followed 
the appeal to the people. The Conservative party was in 
truth demoralised by the downfall of Peel, and the new 
forces which were soon to shape its course had as yet 
scarcely revealed themselves, though Lord Stanley, Lord 
George Bentinck, and Mr. Disraeli were manifestly the 
coming men in Opposition. If the general election was dis- 
tinguished by little enthusiasm either on one side or the 
other, it yet brought with it a personal triumph to Lord John, 
for he was returned for the City at the head of the poll. 
The Government itself not only renewed its strength, but 
increased it as a result of the contest throughout the country. 
At the same time the hostility of the opponents of Free Trade 
was seen in the return of two hundred and twenty-six Pro- 
tectionists, in addition to one hundred and five Conserva- 
tives of the new school of Bentinck and Disraeli. 



DIFFICULTIES OF A PLAIN ENGLISHMAN l6l 

In Other directions, meanwhile, difficulties had beset the 
Government. The proposed appointment of a Broad 
Churchman of advanced views, in the person of Dr. Hampden, 
Regius Professor at Oxford, to the vacant see of Hereford 
filled the High Church party with indignant dismay. Dr. 
Newman, with the courage and self-sacrifice which were 
characteristic of the man, had refused by this time to hold 
any longer an untenable position, and, in spite of his brilliant 
prospects in the English Church, had yielded to conscience 
and submitted to Rome. Dr. Pusey, however, remained, 
and under his skilful leadership the Oxford Movement grew 
strong, and threw its spell in particular over devout women, 
whose aesthetic instincts it satisfied, and whose aspirations after 
a semi-conventual life it met. ^ Lord John had many of the 
characteristics of the plain Englishman. He understood 
zealous Protestants, and, as his rejected scheme for aiding the 
priests in Ireland itself shows, he was also able to apprehend 
the position of earnest Roman Catholics. He had, however, 
not so learnt his Catechism or his Prayer Book as to under- 
stand that the Reformation, if not a crime, was at least a 
blunder, and therefore, like other plain Englishmen, he was 
not prepared to admit the pretensions and assumptions of a 
new race of nondescript priests. Thirteen prelates took the 
unusual course of requesting the Prime Minister to reconsider 
his decision, but Lord John's reply was at once courteous 
and emphatic. ' I cannot sacrifice the reputation of Dr. 
Hampden, the rights of the Crown, and what I believe to be the 
true interests of the Church, to a feeling which I believe to 
have been founded on misapprehension and fomented by 
prejudice.' Although Dr. Pusey did not hesitate to de- 

' The first Anglican Sisterhood was founded by Dr. Pusey in Lon- 
don in the spring of 1845. 

M 



1 62 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

clare that the affair was 'a matter of Hfe and death,' ^ 
ecclesiastical protest availed nothing, and Dr. Hampden was 
in due time consecrated. 

Neither agrarian outrages in Ireland nor clerical agitation 
in England hindered, in the session of 1848, the passing of 
measures of social improvement. The Public Health Act, 
which was based on the representations of Sir Edwin Chad- 
wick and Dr. Southwood Smith, grappled with the sanitary 
question in cities and towns, and thus improved in a variety 
of directions the social life of the people. It had hitherto 
been the fashion of Whigs and Tories alike to neglect prac- 
tical measures of this kind, even though they were so closely 
hnked to the health and welfare of the community. 

• Life of E. B. Pusey, D.D., hyU. R Liddon, D.D., vol. iii. p. 
160 



i63 



CHAPTER VIII 

IN ROUGH WATERS 
1848-18*52 

The People's Charter — Feargus O'Connor and the crowd — Lord 
Palmerston strikes from his own bat — Lord John's view of the 
political situation — Death of Peel — Palmerston and the Court — ' No 
Popery'— The Durham Letter— The invasion scare — Lord John's 
remark about Palmerston — Fall of the Russell Administration. 

England in 1848 was not destined to escape an outbreak of 
the revolutionary spirit, though the Chartist movement, in spite 
of the panic which it awakened, was never really formidable 
The overthrow and flight of Louis Philippe, the proclama- 
tion in March of the French Republic on the basis of univer- 
sal suffrage and national workshops, and the revolutionary 
movements and insurrections in Austria and Italy, filled the 
artisans and operatives of this country with wild dreams, 
and led them to rally their scattered and hitherto dispirited 
forces. Within six years of the passing of the Reform Bill, 
in fact, in the autumn after the Queen's accession, the 
working classes had come to the conclusion that their 
interests had been largely overlooked, and that the expecta- 
tions they had cherished in the struggle of 1831-32 had 
been falsified by the apathy and even the reaction which 
followed the victory. Not in one, but in all the great civil 
and religious struggles of the century, they had borne the 

M 2 



1 64 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

brunt of the battle ; and yet they had been thrust aside when 
it came to the dividing of the spoil. 

The middle classes were in a different position : their 
aspirations were satisfied, and they were quite prepared, for 
the moment at least, to rest and be thankful. The sleek 
complacency of the shopkeeper, moreover, and his hostility 
to further agitation, threw into somewhat dramatic relief the 
restless and sullen attitude of less fortunate conscripts of 
toil. Food was dear, wages were low, work was slack, and 
in the great centres of industry the mills were running half- 
time, and so keen was the struggle for existence that the 
operatives were at the mercy of their taskmasters, and too 
often found it cruel. Small wonder if social discontent 
was widespread, especially when it is remembered that the 
people were not only hopeless and ill-fed, but housed under 
conditions which set at defiance even the most elementary 
laws of health. More than to any other man in the ranks 
of higher statesmanship the people looked to Lord Durham, 
the idol of the pitmen of the North, for the redress of their 
wrongs, and no statesman of that period possessed more 
courage or more real acquaintance with the actual needs of 
the people. Lord Durham, though a man of splendid 
ability, swift vision, and generous sympathy, had, unhappily, 
the knack of making enemies, and the fiery impetuosity 
of his spirit brought him more than once into conflict with 
leaders whose temperament was cold and whose caution 
was great. The rebellion in Canada withdrew Lord Durham 
from the arena of English politics at the beginning of 1838. 
Then it was that the people recognised to the full the 
temper of the statesmen that were left, and the fact that, if 
deliverance was to come from political and social thraldom, 
they must look to themselves and organise their strength. 



A SORRY CHAMPION 1 65 

The representatives of the working classes in 1838 for- 
mulated their demand for radical political reform in the 
famous six points of the People's Charter. This declaration 
claimed manhood suffrage ; the division of the country into 
equal electoral districts ; vote by ballot ; annual Parliaments ; 
the abolition of property qualification for a seat in the House 
of Commons ; and payment of members of Parliament for 
their services. The People's Charter took the working 
classes by storm : it fired their imagination, inspired their 
hopes, and drew them in every manufacturing town and 
district into organised association. 

The leader of the movement was Feargus O'Connor, an 
Irish barrister and journalist, who had entered Parliament 
in 1832 as a follower of O'Connell and as member for Cork. 
He quarrelled, however, with the Irish leader, a circumstance 
which was fatal to success as an agitator in his own country. 
Restless and reckless, he henceforth carried his energy and 
devoted his eloquence to the Chartist movement in England, 
and in 1847 the popular vote carried him once more to the 
House of Commons as member for Nottingham. He 
copied the tactics of O'Connell, but had neither the judg- 
ment nor the strength of the Irish dictator. He seems, 
indeed, to have been rather a poor creature of the vain- 
glorious, bombastic type. A year or two later he became 
hopelessly insane, and in the vaporing heroics and parade 
of gasconade which marked him as the champion of the 
Chartists in the spring of 1848 it is charitable now to 
discover the first seeds of his disorder. However that may 
be, he was a nine-days' wonder, for from All Fools' Day to 
the morning of April 10 society in London was in a state 
of abject panic. The troubles in Ireland, the insurrections 
and rumours of insurrection on the Continent, the revolution 



1 66 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

in France, the menacing discontent in the provinces, and 
the threatening attitude of the working men in the metropoUs, 
were enough to cause alarm among the privileged classes, 
and conscience made cowards, not certainly of them all, but 
of the majority. 

Literature enough and to spare, explanatory, declama- 
tory and the like, has grown around a movement which 
ran like an unfed river, until it lost itself in the sand. Three 
men of genius took up their parable about what one of 
them called the ' Condition of England Question,' and in 
the pages of Carlyle's ' Chartism ' and * Past and Present,' 
Disraeli's ' Sybil,' and last, but not least, in Kingsley's 
'Alton Locke,' the reader of to-day is in possession of 
sidelights, vivid, picturesque, and dramatic, on English 
society in the years when the Chartists were coming to their 
power, and in the year when they lost it. Lord John 
was at first in favour of allowing the Chartists to demon- 
strate to their hearts' content. He therefore proposed to 
permit them to cross Westminster Bridge, so that they 
might deliver their petition at the doors of Parliament. He 
thought that the police might then prevent the re-forming 
of the procession, and scatter the crowd in the direction of 
Charing Cross. Lord John had done too much for the 
people to be afraid of them, and he refused to accept the 
alarmist view of the situation. But the consternation was 
so widespread, and the panic so general, that the Govern- 
ment felt compelled on April 6 to declare the proposed 
meeting criminal and illegal, to call upon all peaceably 
disposed citizens not to attend, and to take extraordinary 
precautions. It was, however, announced that the right of 
assembly would be respected ; but, on the advice of Welling- 
ton, only three of the leaders were to be allowed to cross the 



LONDON IN TERROR 167 

bridge. The Bank, the Tower, and the neighbourhood of 
Kennington Common meanwhile were protected by troops 
of cavalry and infantry, whilst the approaches to the Houses 
of Parliament and the Government offices were held by 
artillery. 

The morning of the fateful loth dawned brightly, but no 
one dared forecast how the evening would close, and for a 
few hours of suspense there was a reign of terror. Many 
houses were barricaded, and in the West End the streets 
were deserted except by the valiant special constables, who 
stood at every corner in defence of law and order. The 
shopkeepers, who were not prepared to take joyfully the 
spoiling of their goods, formed the great mass of this citizen 
army — one hundred and fifty thousand strong. There were, 
nevertheless, recruits from all classes, and in the excitement 
and peril of the hour odd men rubbed shoulders. Lord 
Shaftesbury, for instance, was on duty in Mount Street, 
Grosvenor Square, with a sallow young foreigner for com- 
panion, who was afterwards to create a more serious disturb- 
ance on his own account, and to spring to power as 
Napoleon III. Thomas Carlyle preferred to play the 
part of the untrammelled man in the street, and sallied 
forth in search of food for reflection. He wanted to see the 
' revolution ' for himself, and strode towards Hyde Park, 
determined, he tells us, to walk himself into a glow of heat 
in spite of the ' venomous cold wind ' which called forth his 
anathemas. The Chelsea moralist found London, westward 
at least, safe and quiet, in spite of ' empty rumours and a 
hundred and fifty thousand oaths of special constables.' 
He noticed as he passed Apsley House that even the Duke 
had taken the affair seriously, in his private as well as his 
public capacity, for all the iron blinds were down. The Green 



1 68 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Park was closed. ]\Iounted Guardsmen stood ready on 
Constitution Hill. The fashionable carriage had vanished 
from Piccadilly. Business everywhere was at a standstill, for 
London knew not what that day might bring forth. Presently 
the rain began to fall, and then came down in drenching 
showers. In spite of their patriotic fervour, the special con- 
stables grew both damp and depressed. Suddenly a rumour 
ran along the streets that the great demonstration at Kenning- 
ton Common had ended in smoke, and by noon the crowd was 
streaming over Westminster Bridge and along Whitehall, 
bearing the tidings that the march to the House of Commons 
had been abandoned. Feargus O'Connor had, in fact, taken 
fright, and presently the petition rattled ingloriously to 
AVestminster in the safe but modest keeping of a hackney 
cab. The shower swept the angry and noisy rabble home- 
wards, or into neighbouring public-houses, and ridicule — as 
the evening filled the town with complacent special con- 
stables and their admiring wives and sweethearts— did even 
more than the rain to quench the Chartist agitation. It had 
been boldly announced that one hundred and fifty thousand 
people would meet at Kennington. Less than a third of 
that number assembled, and a considerable part of the crowd 
had evidently been attracted by curiosity. Afterwards, when 
the monster petition with its signatures was examined, it was 
found to fall short of the boasted ' five million ' names by up- 
wards of three millions. Many of those which did appear 
were palpably fictitious ; indeed the rude wit of the London 
apprentice was responsible for scores of silly signatures. 
Lord John's comment on the affair was characteristic. 
After stating that no great numbers followed the cab which 
contained the petition, and that there was no mob at the 
door of the House of Commons, he adds : ' London escaped 



palmerston's opportunity 169 

the fate of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. For my own part, 
I saw in these proceedings a fresh proof that the people of 
England were satisfied with the Government under which 
they had the happiness to live, did not wish to be instructed 
by their neighbours in the principles of freedom, and did 
not envy them either the liberty they had enjoyed under 
Robespierre, or the order which had been established among 
them by Napoleon the Great.' 

Lord John's allusion to Paris, Berhn, and Vienna 
suggests foreign politics, and also the growing lack of 
harmony between Lord Palmerston on the one hand and 
the Court and Cabinet on the other. Although he long 
held the highest office under the Crown, Lord Palmerston's 
chief claim to distinction was won as Foreign Minister. He 
began his official career as a Tory in the Portland Adminis- 
tration of 1807, and two years later — at the age of five-and- 
twenty — was appointed Secretary at War in the Perceval 
Government. He held this post for the long term of 
eighteen years, and when Canning succeeded to power 
.till retained it, with a seat in the Cabinet. Palmerston 
was a liberal Tory of the school of Canning, and, when 
Lord Grey became Premier in 1830, was a man of suffi- 
cient mark to be entrusted with the seals of the Foreign 
Office, though, until his retirement in 1834, Grey exercised 
a controlling voice in the foreign policy of the nation. It 
was not until Grey was succeeded by Melbourne that 
Palmerston began to display both his strength and his 
weakness in independent action. 

He saw his opportunity and took it. He knew his 
own mind and disliked interference, and this made him 
more and more inclined to be heedless of the aid, and 
almost of the approval, of his colleagues. Under a 



I/O LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

provokingly pleasant manner lurked, increasingly, the temper 
of an autocrat. Melbourne sat lightly to most things, and 
not least to questions of foreign policy. He was easily 
bored, and believed in laissez-faire to an extent which has 
never been matched by any other Prime Minister in the 
Queen's reign. The consequence was that for seven critical 
years Palmerston did what was right in his own eyes, until he 
came to regard himself not merely as the custodian of 
English interests abroad, but almost as the one man in the 
Cabinet who was entitled to speak with authority concern- 
ing them. If the responsibility of the first Afghan war must 
rest chiefly on his shoulders, it is only fair to remember 
that he took the risk of a war with France in order to drive 
Ibrahim Pacha out of Syria. From first to last, his tenure 
at the Foreign Office covered a period of nearly twenty years. 
Though he made serious mistakes, he also made despots 
in every part of the world afraid of him ; whilst struggling 
nationalities felt that the great English Minister was not 
oblivious of the claims of justice, or deaf to the appeal 
for mercy. Early in the Russell Administration Lord 
Palmerston's high-handed treatment of other members of 
the Cabinet provoked angry comment, and Sir Robert Peel 
did not conceal his opinion that Lord John gave his im- 
petuous colleague too much of his own way. The truth 
was, the Premier's hands, and heart also, were in 1846 
and 1847 full of the Irish famine, and Lord Palmerston 
took advantage of the fact. Moreover, Lord John Russell 
was, broadly speaking, in substantial agreement with his 
Foreign Minister, though he cordially disliked his habit 
of taking swift and almost independent action. 

At the beginning of 1848 Palmerston seemed deter- 
mined to pick a quarrel with France, and in February 



CLIMBING DOWN 171 

drew up a threatening despatch on the difficulty which 
had arisen between our Ambassador (Lord Normanby) 
and Louis PhiUppe, which brought matters to a crisis. 
Louis PhiUppe had acted a dishonourable part over the 
Spanish marriages, and Palmerston was prepared to go 
out of his way to humiliate France. At the last moment, 
the affair came to Lord John's knowledge through Lord 
Clarendon, with the result that the communication was 
countermanded. Lord Palmerston appears to have taken 
the rebuff, humiliating as it was, with characteristic non- 
chalance, and it produced little more than a momentary 
effect. The ignominious flight of Louis Philippe quickly 
followed, and the revolution in France was the signal in 
Vienna for a revolt of the students and artisans, which 
drove Metternich to find refuge in England and the 
Emperor Ferdinand to seek asylum in the Tyrol. Austrians, 
Hungarians, and Slavs only needed an opportunity, such 
as the 'year of revolutions ' afforded, to display their hostihty 
to one another, and the racial jealousy brought Austria and 
Hungary to open war. In Milan, in Naples, and Berlin 
the revolutionary spirit displayed itself, and in these centres, 
as well as in Switzerland, changes in the direction of liberty 
took place. 

Lord John Russell, in an important document, which 
Mr. Walpole has printed, and which bears date May i, 1848, 
has explained his own view of the political situation in 
Europe at that moment. After a lucid and impressive 
survey of the changes that had taken place in the map of 
Europe since the Congress of Vienna, Lord John lays down 
the principle that it is neither becoming nor expedient for 
England to proclaim that the Treaties of 181 5 were invalid. 
On the contrary, England ought rather to promote, in the 



172 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

interests of peace and order, the maintenance of the terri- 
torial divisions then made. At the same time, England, amid 
the storm, ought not to persist in clinging to a wreck if a safe 
spar is within her reach. He recognised that Austria could 
hardly restore her sway in Italy, and was not in a position 
to confront the cost of a protracted war, in which France 
was certain to take sides against her. He, therefore, thought 
it advisable that English diplomacy should be brought to 
bear at Vienna, so as to 'produce a frank abandonment 
of Lombardy and Venice on the part of Austria.' He 
declared that it was not to the advantage of England to 
meddle with the internal affairs of Spain ; but he thought 
there was a favourable chance of coming to an under- 
standing with Germany, where the Schleswig-Holstein 
question already threatened disturbance. ' It is our 
interest,' are the final words of this significant State paper, 
' to use our influence as speedily and as generally as possible 
to settle the pending questions and to fix the boundaries of 
States. Otherwise, if war once becomes general, it will 
spread over Germany, reach Belgium, and finally sweep 
England into its vortex. Should our efforts for peace 
succeed, Europe may begin a new career with more or less 
of hope and of concord ; should they fail, we must keep 
our sword in the scabbard as long as we can, but we cannot 
hope to be neutral in a great European war. England 
cannot be indifferent to the supremacy of France over 
Germany and Italy, or to the advance of Russian armies 
to Constantinople ; still less to the incorporation of Belgium 
with a new French Empire.' 

As usual. Lord Palmerston had his own ideas and the 
courage of them. Within three weeks of the Russell Memo- 
randum to the Cabinet he accordingly stood out in his true 



OUR POLICY ABROAD 173 

colours as a frank opportunist. The guiding rule of his 
foreign policy, he stated, was to promote and advance, 
as far as lay in his power, the interests of the country as 
opportunity served and as necessity arose. ' We have no 
everlasting union with this or that country — no identifica- 
tion of policy with another. We have no natural enemies 
— no perpetual friends. When we find a Power pursuing 
that course of policy which we wish also to promote, for 
the time that Power becomes our ally; and when we find a 
country whose interests are at variance with our own, we 
are involved for a time with the Government of that country. 
We find no fault with other nations for pursuing their inter- 
ests ; and they ought not to find fault with us, if, in pursuing 
our interests, our course may be different from theirs.' 

Lord Palmerston held that the real policy of this 
country was to be the champion of justice and right, 
though professing no sympathy with the notion that England 
ought to become, to borrow his own expression, the Quixote 
of the world. ' I hold that England is a Power sufficiently 
strong to steer her own course, and not to tie herself as an 
unnecessary appendage to the policy of any other Govern- 
ment.' He declared that, if he might be allowed to gather 
into one sentence the principle which he thought ought to 
guide an EngHsh statesman, he would adopt the expression 
of Canning, and say that with every British Minister the 
interests of England ought to be the shibboleth of his policy. 
Unfortunately, Lord Palmerston, in spite of such statements, 
was too much inclined to throw the moral weight of England 
into this or that scale on his own responsibility, and, as it 
often seemed to dispassionate observers, on the mere caprice 
of the hour. He took up the position that the interests of 
England were safe in his hands, and magnified his office. 



174 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

sometimes to the annoyance of the Court and often to the 
chagrin of the Cabinet. No matter what storm raged, 
Palmerston always contrived to come to the surface again 
hke a cork. He never lost his self-possession, and a pro- 
found sense of his own infallibility helped him, under 
difficulties and rebuffs which would have knocked the spirit 
out of other men, to adopt the attitude of the patriotic states- 
man struggling with adversity. When the session of 1849 
closed he was in an extremely difficult position, in conse- 
quence of the growing disHke in high quarters to his policy, 
and the coolness which had sprung up between himself 
and the majority of his colleagues ; yet we find him writing 
a jaunty note to his brother in the strain of a man who had 
not only deserved success but won it. ' After the trumpet- 
ings of attacks that were to demolish first one and then 
another of the Government — first me, then Grey, then 
Charles Wood — we have come triumphantly out of the de- 
bates and divisions, and end the session stronger than we 
began it.' ^ 

Lord Palmerston's passion for personal ascendency was 
not to be repressed, and in the electric condition of Europe 
it proved perilous as well as embarrassing to the Russell 
Administration. Without the knowledge of the Queen or his 
colleagues, Lord Palmerston, for instance, sent a letter to Sir 
H. Bulwer advising an extension of the basis of the Spanish 
Government, an act of interference which caused so much 
irritation at Madrid that the Spanish Government requested 
the British Ambassador to leave the country. Happily, the 
breach with Madrid was repaired after a few months' anxiety 
on the part of Palmerston's colleagues. The Queen's 

' Life of Lord Palmerston, by the lion. Evelyn Ashley, vol. ii. 
P- 95- 



STRAINED RELATIONS 175 

sense of the indiscretion was apparent in the request to 
Lord Palmerston to submit in future all his despatches to the 
Prime Minister. Other occasions soon arose which increased 
distrust at Windsor, and further strained friendly relations 
between the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. The 
latter's removal to some less responsible post was contem- 
plated, for her Majesty appeared to disapprove of everything 
Lord Palmerston did. Without detailing the various circum- 
stances which awakened the Queen's displeasure, it is suffi- 
cient to draw attention to one event— known in the annals 
of diplomacy as the ' Don Pacifico ' affair — which threatened 
the overthrow of the Ministry, 

Two British subjects demanded in vain compensation 
from the Greek Government for damage to their property. 
Lord Palmerston came to their defence, and sent private 
instructions to the Admiral of the British fleet at the 
Dardanelles to seize Greek vessels by way of reprisal, which 
was promptly done. The tidings fell like a thunderbolt upon 
Downing Street. France and Russia made angry protests, 
and war was predicted. At length an offer of mediation 
from Paris was accepted, and the matter was arranged in 
London. Lord Palmerston, however, omitted to inform the 
English Minister at Athens of the settlement, and, whilst 
everyone in England rejoiced that the storm had blown 
over, the Admiral was laying an embargo on other ships, 
and at last forced the Greek Government to grant compensa- 
tion. France, indignant at such cavalier treatment, recalled 
M. Drouyn de Lhuys from London, and again the war-cloud 
lowered. Lord Palmerston had the audacity to state in 
the House of Commons that the French Minister had 
returned to Paris in order ' presumably to be the medium of 
communication between the two Governments as to these 



[76 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

matters.' The truth came out on the morrow, and Lord 
John, in the discreet absence of his colleague, was forced to 
explain as best he might the position of affairs. Although 
he screened Lord Palmerston as far as he was able, he 
determined to make a change at the Foreign Office. 

In June 1850, Lord Stanley challenged the foreign policy 
of Lord Palmerston in the House of Lords, and carried, by 
a majority of thirty-seven, a resolution of censure. Mr. 
Roebuck, in the Commons, met the hostile vote by a resolu- 
tion of confidence, and, after four nights' debate, secured a 
majority of forty-six. Lord Palmerston made an able 
defence of his conduct of affairs, and Lord John Russell, who 
differed from him not so much in the matter as in the 
manner of his decisions, not merely refused to leave his 
colleague in the lurch, but came vigorously to his support. 
The debate was rendered memorable on other grounds. 
Sir Robert Peel, in the course of it, delivered his last speech 
in Parliament. The division, which gave Palmerston a fresh 
tenure of power, was taken at four o'clock on the morning of 
Saturday, June 29. Peel left the House to snatch a few 
hours' sleep before going at noon to a meeting which was to 
settle the disputed question as to the site of the Great Exhibi- 
tion. He kept his appointment ; but later in the day he was 
thrown from his horse on Constitution Hill, and received 
injuries which proved fatal on the night of July 2. His 
death was a national calamity, for at sixty-two he was still 
in the fulness of his strength. There will always be a 
diversity of judgment concerning his career ; there is but 
one opinion about his character. Few statesmen have gone 
to their grave amid more remarkable expressions of regret. 
Old and young colleagues, from the Duke of Wellington to 
Mr. Gladstone, betrayed by their emotion no less than by 



PEEL AND PALMERSTON 177 

their words, their grief over the loss of a leader who followed 
his conscience even at the expense of the collapse of his 
power. Lord John Russell, the most distinguished, without 
doubt, of Sir Robert's opponents on the floor of the House, 
paid a generous tribute to his rival's memory. He declared 
that posterity would regard Sir Robert Peel as one of the 
greatest and most patriotic of statesman. He laid stress on 
that ' long and large experience of public affairs, that profound 
knowledge, that oratorical power, that copious yet exact 
memory, with which the House was wont to be enlightened, 
interested, and guided.' When the offer of a public funeral 
was declined, in deference to Sir Robert's known wishes. 
Lord John proposed and carried a resolution for the erection 
of a statue in Westminster Abbey. He also marked his 
sense of the loss which the nation had sustained, in the 
disappearance of an illustrious man, by giving his noble- 
minded and broken-hearted widow the refusal of a peerage. 
Meanwhile, Lord Palmerston, on the strength of the 
vote of confidence in the Commons, was somewhat of a 
popular hero. People who beheve that England can do no 
wrong, at least abroad, beUeved in him. His audacity 
delighted the man in the club. His pluck took the plat- 
form and much of the press by storm. The multitude 
rehshed his peremptory despatches, and were delighted when 
he either showed fight or encouraged it in others. In 
course of time ' Pam' became the typical fine old English 
gentleman of genial temper but domineering instincts. 
Prince Albert disliked him ; he was too little of a courtier, 
too much of an off-handed man of affairs. Windsor, of 
course, received early tidings of the impression which was 
made at foreign Courts by the most independent and 
and cavalier Foreign Minister of the century. Occasionally 

N 



178 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

he needlessly offended the susceptibihties of exalted per- 
sonages abroad as well as at home. At length the Queen, 
determined no longer to be put in a false position, drew up 
a sharply-worded memorandum, in which explicit directions 
were given for the transaction of business between the Crown 
and the Foreign Office. ' The Queen requires, first, that Lord 
Palmerston will distinctly state what he proposes in a given 
case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to what 
she is giving her royal sanction ; secondly, having once given 
her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered 
or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider 
as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be 
visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dis- 
missing that Minister. She expects to be kept informed of 
what passes between him and the Foreign Ministers before 
important decisions are taken, based upon that intercourse ; 
to receive the foreign despatches in good time ; and to have 
the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to 
make herself acquainted with their contents before they 
must be sent off.' 

No responsible adviser of the Crown during the reign 
had received such emphatic censure, and in August 1850 
people were talking as if Palmerston was bound to resign. 
He certainly would have done so if he had merely consulted 
his own feelings ; but he declared that to resign just then 
would be to play into the hands of the political adversaries 
whom he had just defeated, and to throw over his supporters 
at the moment when they had fought a successful battle on 
his behalf. Lord Palmerston, therefore, accepted the Queen's 
instructions with unwonted meekness. He assured her 
Majesty that he would not fail to attend to the directions which 
the memorandum contained, and for a while harmony was 



THE COUP d'&TAT 179 

restored. In the autumn of 185 1 Louis Kossuth arrived in 
England, and met with an enthusiastic reception, of the kind 
which was afterwards accorded in London to another popular 
hero, in the person of Garibaldi. Lord Palmerston received 
Kossuth at the Foreign Office, and, contrary to the wishes 
of the Queen and Prime Minister, deputations were admitted, 
and addresses were presented, thanking Palmerston for his 
services in the cause of humanity, whilst in the same breath 
allusions to the Emperors of Austria and Russia as ' odious 
and detestable assassins ' were made. Almost before the 
annoyance created by this fresh act of indiscretion had sub- 
sided, Lord Palmerston was guilty of a still more serious 
offence. 

Louis Napoleon had been elected President of the 
French Republic by five and a half million votes. He was 
thought to be ambitious rather than able, and he had pledged 
himself to sustain the existing Constitution. He worked for 
his own hand, however, and accordingly conciliated first the 
clergy, then the peasants, and finally the army, by fair pro- 
mises, popular acts, and a bold policy. On December 2, 
1 85 1, when his term of office was expiring. Napoleon suddenly 
overthrew the Assembly, which had refused a month or two 
previously to revise the Constitution in order to make the 
President eligible for re-election, and next morning all 
Europe was startled with tidings of the Coup d'Etat. Both 
the EngUsh Court and Cabinet felt that absolute neutrality 
must be observed during the tumult which followed in Paris, 
and instructions to that effect were accordingly transmitted 
to Lord Normanby. But w^hen that diplomatist made 
known this official communication, he was met with the 
retort that Lord Palmerston, in a conversation with the 
French Ambassador in London, had already declared that 

N 2 



I So LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the Coup d^Etat was an act of self-defence, and in fact was 
the best thing under the circumstances for France. Lord 
Palmerston, in a subsequent despatch to Lord Normanby, 
which was not submitted either to the Queen or the Prime 
Minister, reiterated his opinion. 

Under these circumstances, Lord John Russell had no 
alternative except to dismiss Lord Palmerston. He did so, 
as he explained when Parliament met in February, on the 
ground that the Foreign Secretary had practically put him- 
self, for the moment, in the place of the Crown. He had 
given the moral approbation of England to the acts of the 
President of the Republic of France, though he knew, when 
he was doing so, that he was acting in direct opposition to 
the wishes of the sovereign and the policy of the Govern- 
ment. Lord John stated in the House of Commons that 
he took upon himself the sole and entire responsibility of 
advising her Majesty to require the resignation of Lord 
Palmerston. He added that, though the Foreign Secretary 
had neglected what was due to the Crown and his col- 
leagues, he felt sure that he had not intended any personal 
disrespect. Greville declared that, in all his experience of 
scenes in Parliament, he could recall no such triumph as Lord 
Russell achieved on this occasion, nor had he ever witnessed a 
discomfiture more complete than that of Palmerston. Lord 
Dalhng, another eye-witness of the episode, has described, 
from the point of view of a sympathiser Avith Palmerston, 
the manner in which he seemed completely taken by sur- 
prise by the ' tremendous assault ' which Lord John, by a 
damaging appeal to facts, made against him. In his view, 
Russell's speech was one of the most powerful to which he 
had ever listened, and its effect was overwhelming. Disraeli, 
meeting Lord Bailing by chance next day on the staircase 



'THERE WAS A PALMERSTON ! ' l8l 

of the Russian Embassy, exclaimed as he passed, with sig- 
nificant emphasis, ' There was a Palmerston ! ' The common 
opinion at the clubs found expression in a phrase which 
passed from lip to lip, ' Palmerston is smashed ; ' but, though 
driven for the moment to bay, the dismissed Minister was 
himself of another mind. 

Lord Palmerston was offered the Irish Viceroyalty, but 
he decHned to take such an appointment. He accepted 
his. dismissal with a characteristic affectation of indifference, 
and in the course of a laboured defence of his action in the 
House of Commons, excused his communication to the 
French Ambassador on the plea that it was only the expres- 
sion of an opinion on passing events, common to that ' easy 
and familiar personal intercourse, which tends so usefully to the 
maintenance of friendly relations with foreign Governments.' 
Lady Russell wrote down at the time her own impressions 
of this crisis in her husband's Cabinet, and the following 
passage throws a valuable sidelight on a memorable inci- 
dent in the Queen's reign : 'The breach between John 
and Lord Palmerston was a calamity to the country, to the 
Whig party, and to themselves ; and, although it had for 
some months been a threatening danger on the horizon, I 
cannot but feel that there was accident in its actual occur- 
rence. Had we been in London or at Pembroke Lodge, 
and not at Woburn Abbey, at the time, they would have met, 
and talked over the subject of their difference ; words spoken 
might have been equally strong, but would have been less 
cutting than words written, and conciliatory expressions on 
John's part would have led the way to promises on Lord 
Palmerston's. . . . They two kept up the character of England, 
as the sturdy guardians of her rights against other nations, 
and the champions of freedom and independence abroad. 



1 82 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

They did so both before and after the breach of 185 1, which 
was, happily, closed in the following year, when they were 
once more colleagues in office. On matters of home policy 
Lord Palmerston remained the Tory he had been in his 
earlier days, and this was the cause of many a trial to John.' 

The Russell Administration, as the Premier himself 
frankly recognised, was seriously weakened by the dismissal 
of Lord Palmerston; and its position was not improved when 
Lord Clarendon, on somewhat paltry grounds, refused the 
Foreign Office. Lord John's sagacity was shown by the prompt 
offer of the vacant appointment to Lord Granville, who, at 
the age of thirty-six, entered the Cabinet, and began a career 
which was destined to prove a controlling force in the 
foreign policy of England in the Victorian era. 

Meanwhile fresh difficulties had arisen. Li the autumn 
of 1850 — a year which had already been rendered memo- 
rable in ecclesiastical circles by the Gorham case — Pius 
IX. issued a Bull by which England became a province 
of the Roman Catholic Church. Dr. Wiseman was created 
Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, and England was 
divided into twelve sees with territorial titles. The assump- 
tion by Pius IX. of spiritual authority over England was a 
blunder ; indeed, no better proof in recent times of the lack 
of infallibility at Rome could well be discovered. One 
swallow, proverbially, does not make a spring ; and when 
Newman took refuge in flight, other leaders of the Oxford 
Movement refused to accept his logic and to follow his ex- 
ample. Englishmen have always resented anything in the 
shape of foreign dictation, and deep in the national heart 
there yet survives a rooted hostility to the claims of the 
Vatican. Napoleon's Coup d'Etat, which followed quickly 
on the heels of this dramatic act of Papal aggression, 



ROME AND OXFORD 1 83 

scarcely took the nation more completely by surprise. No 
Vatican decree could well have proved more unpopular, 
and even Canon Liddon is obliged to admit that the bishops, 
with one solitary exception, ' threw the weight of their autho- 
rity on the side of popular and short-sighted passion.' ^ 

Pius IX. knew nothing of the English character, but 
Cardinal Wiseman, at least, could not plead ignorance of the 
real issues at stake ; and therefore his grandiloquent and, 
under all the circumstances, ridiculous pastoral letter, which 
he dated ' From out of the Flaminian Gate at Rome,' was 
justly regarded as an insult to the religious convictions of 
the vast majority of the English people. Anglicans and 
Nonconformists alike resented such an authoritative deliver- 
ance, and presently the old ' No Popery ' cry rang like a 
clarion through the land. Dr. Newman, with the zeal of a 
pervert, preached a sermon on the revival of the Catholic 
Church, and in the course of it he stated that the ' people of 
England, who for so. many years have been separated from 
the See of Rome, are about, of their own will, to be added 
to the Holy Church.' The words were, doubtless, spoken 
in good faith, for the great leader of the Oxford Movement 
naturally expected that those who had espoused his views, hke 
honest men, would follow his example. Dr. Pusey, however, 
was a more astute ecclesiastical statesman than Cardinal Wise- 
man. He was in favour of a ' very moderate ' declaration 
against Rome, for the resources of compromise were evidently 
in his eyes not exhausted. The truth was, Pusey and Keble, 
by a course of action which to this day remains a standing 
riddle to the Papacy on the one hand, and to Protestantism 
on the other, threw dust in the eyes of Pius IX., and were 

' Life of E. B. Ptisey, D.D., by H. P. Liddon, D.D., vol. iii. p. 292. 
Longmans & Co. 



l84 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the real authors of Papal aggression. Lord John Russell 
saw this quite clearly, and in proof of such an assertion it is 
only necessary to appeal to his famous Durham Letter. He 
had watched the drift of ecclesiastical opinion, and had seen 
with concern that the tide was running swiftly in the direc- 
tion of Rome. 

England had renounced the Papal supremacy for the 
space of 300 years, and had grown strong in the liberty 
which had followed the downfall of such thraldom. Oxford 
had taught Rome to tempt England ; the leaders of the 
so-called Anglican revival were responsible for the flourish 
of trumpets at the Vatican. Lord John's ecclesiastical 
appointments called forth sharp criticism. He was a Pro- 
testant of the old uncompromising type, with leanings 
towards advanced thought in Biblical criticism. He knew, 
moreover, what Puritanism had done for the English 
nation in the seventeenth century, and made no secret 
of his conviction that it was the Nonconformists, more 
than any other class, who had rendered civil and religious 
liberty possible. He moreover knew that in his own time 
they, more than any other part of the community, had 
carried the Reform Bill, brought about the abolition of 
slavery, and established Free Trade. He had been brought 
into contact with their leaders, and was beginning to per- 
ceive, with the nation at large, how paltry and inadequate 
were the claims of a rigid Churchmanship, since the true 
apostolical succession is a matter of altitude of spiritual 
devotion, and borrows none of its rights from the pretensions 
of clerical caste. 

The Durham Letter was written from Downing Street, 
on November 4, 1850. It gained its name because it was 
addressed to the Premier's old friend Dr. Maltby, Bishop of 



THE DURHAM LETTER 185 

Durham, and appeared in the newspapers on the day on 
which it was dated. Lord John declared that he had not 
only promoted to the utmost of his power the claims of 
Roman Catholics to all civil rights, but had deemed it not 
merely just, but desirable, that that Church should impart 
religious instruction to the ' numerous Irish immigrants in 
London and elsewhere, who, without such help, would have 
been left in heathen ignorance.' He believed that this 
might have been accomplished without any such innovation 
as that which the Papacy now contemplated. He laid stress 
on the assumption of power made in all the documents on 
the subject which had come from Rome, and he protested 
against such pretensions as inconsistent with the Queen's 
supremacy, with the rights of the bishops and clergy, and with 
the spiritual independence of the nation. He confessed 
that his alarm was not equal to his indignation, since English- 
men would never again allow any foreign prince or potentate 
to impose a yoke on their minds and consciences. He 
hinted at legislative action on the subject, and then pro- 
ceeded to take up his parable against the Tractarians in the 
following unmistakeable terms : ' There is a danger, however, 
which alarms me much more than the aggression of a foreign 
sovereign. Clergymen of our Church who have subscribed the 
Thirty-nine Articles and have acknowledged in explicit terms 
the Queen's supremacy, have been the most forward in lead- 
ing their flocks, step by step, to the verge of the precipice. 
The honour paid to saints, the claim of infallibility for the 
Church, the superstitious use of the sign of the Cross, the 
muttering of the Liturgy so as to disguise the language in 
which it was written, the recommendation of auricular con- 
fession, and the administration of penance and absolution — 
all these things are pointed out by clergymen as worthy of 



1 86 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

adoption, and are now openly reprehended by the Bishop of 
London in his Charge to the clergy of his diocese. What, 
then, is the danger to be apprehended from a foreign prince of 
no power, compared to the danger within the gates from the 
unworthy sons of the Church of England herself? I have 
but little hope that the propounders and framers of these 
innovations will desist from their insidious course ; but I 
rely with confidence on the people of England, and I will 
not bate a jot of heart or life so long as the glorious princi- 
ples and the immortal martyrs of the Reformation shall be 
held in reverence by the §reat mass of a nation, which 
look with contempt on the mummeries of superstition, and 
with scorn at the laborious endeavours which are now being 
made to confine the intellect and enslave the soul.' 

Lord John's manifesto was as fuel to the flames. All over 
the kingdom preparations were in progress at the moment 
for a national carnival — now fallen largely into disrepute. 
Guy Fawkes was hastily dethroned, and the Pope and 
Cardinal Wiseman were paraded in efiigy through the 
streets of London, Exeter, and other cities, and burnt at 
nightfall amid the jeers of the crowd. Petitions began to 
pour in against Papal aggression, and the literature of the 
subject, in controversial tract, pamphlet, and volume, grew 
suddenly not less bewildering than formidable. The ar- 
rival in London of Father Gavazzi, an ex-priest of com- 
manding presence and impassioned oratory, helped to 
arouse still further the Protestant spirit of the nation. The 
Press, the pulpit, the platform, formed a triple alliance 
against the Vatican, and the indignant rejection of the 
Pope's claims may be said to have been carried by acclama- 
tion. Clamour ran riot through the land, and spent its 
force in noisy demonstrations. The Catholics met the 



' NO popery' 187 

tumult, on the whole, with praiseworthy moderation, and 
presently signs of the inevitable reaction began to appear. 
Lord John's colleagues were not of one mind as to the 
wisdom of the Durham Letter, for if there is one taunt 
before which an ordinary Englishman quails, it is the accu- 
sation of religious bigotry. 

The Durham Letter was an instance in which Lord John's 
zeal outran his discretion.^ Lord Shaftesbury, who was in 
the thick of the tumult, and has left a vivid description 
of it in his journal, ^ declared that Cardinal Wiseman's 
manifesto, in spite of its audacity, was likely to prove 
' more hurtful to the shooter than to the target.' Looking 
back at the crisis, after an interval of more than forty years, 
the same criticism seems to apply with added force to the 
Durham Letter. Lord John overshot the mark, and his 
accusations wounded those whom he did not intend to 
attack, and in the recoil of public opinion his own repu- 

r 

tation suffered. He resented, with pardonable warmth, 
the attitude of the Vatican, and was jealous of any 
infringement, from that or any other quarter, of the 
Queen's supremacy in her own realms. The most dama- 
ging sentences in the Durham Letter were not directed 
against the Catholics, either in Rome, England, or Ireland, 
but against the Tractarian clergymen — men whom he 
regarded as ' unworthy sons of the Church of England.' 
The Catholics, incensed at the denial of the Pope's supre- 
macy, were, however, in no mood to make distinctions, 
and they have interpreted Lord John's strictures on Dr. 
Pusey and his followers as an attack on their own reli- 

' Cobden described it as ' a Guy Fawkes outcry,' and predicted the 
fall of the Ministry. 

^ See Life and Work of the Seve^tth Earl of Shaftesbury, by Edwin 
Hodder, pp. 429-435. 



l88 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

gious faith. The consequence was that the manifesto was 
regarded, especially in Ireland, not merely as a protest 
against the politics of the Vatican, but as a sweeping censure 
on the creed of Rome. Lord John's character and past 
services might have shielded him from such a construction 
being placed upon his words, for he had proved, on more 
than one historic occasion, his devotion to the cause of reli- 
gious liberty. Disraeli, writing to his sister in November, 
said : ' I . think John Russell is in a scrape. I understand 
that his party are furious with him. The Irish are frantic. 
If he goes on with the Protestant movement he will be thrown 
over by the Papists ; if he shuffles with the Protestants, their 
blood is too high to be silent now, and they will come to us. 
I think Johnny is checkmated.' ^ 

For the moment, however, passion and prejudice every- 
where ran riot, and on both sides of the controversy 
common sense and common fairness were forgotten. A 
representative Irish politician of a later generation has not 
failed to observe the irony of the position. ' It was a 
curious incident in political history,' declares Mr. Justin 
McCarthy, 'that Lord John Russell, who had more than 
any Englishman then living been identified with the princi- 
ples of religious liberty, who had sat at the feet of Fox, and 
had for his closest friend the Catholic poet Thomas Moore, 
came to be regarded by Roman Catholics as the bitterest 
enemy of their creed and their rights of worship.' ^ It is 
easy to cavil at Lord John Russell's interpretation of the 
Oxford Movement, and to assert that the accusations of the 
Durham Letter were due to bigotry and panic. He believed, 

' Lord BeaconsfielcTs CorrespoJidence ivith his Sister (1832- 1852), 
p. 249. London : John Murray. 

- History of Our Ow7t Times, by Justin McCarthy, M.P. vol. ii- 
pp. 85, 86. 



UNDER WHICH FLAG? 189 

in common with thousands of other distressed Churchmen, 
that the Tractarians were foes within the gates of the Estab- 
lishment. He regarded them, moreover, as ministers of reU- 
gion who were hostile to the work of the Reformation, and 
therefore he deemed that they were in a false position in the 
Anglican Church. Their priestly claims and sacerdotal rites, 
their obvious sympathies and avowed convictions, separated 
them sharply from ordinary clergymen, and were difficult to 
reconcile with adherence to the principles of Protestantism. 
Like many other men at the time, and still more of to-day, 
he was at a loss to discover how ecclesiastics of such a stamp 
could remain in the ministry of the Church of England, 
when they seemed to ordinary eyes to be in league with 
Rome. The prelates, almost to a man, were hotly opposed 
to the Tractarians when Lord John wrote the Durham 
Letter. They shared his convictions and applauded his 
action. Since then many things have happened. The 
Oxford Movement has triumphed, and has done so largely 
by the self-sacrificing devotion of its adherents. It has 
summoned to its aid art and music, learning and eloquence ; 
it has appealed to the aesthetic and emotional elements in 
human nature ; it has led captive the imagination of many 
by its dramatic revival of mediaeval ideas and methods ; and 
it has stilled by its assumption of authority the restlessness 
of souls, too weary to argue, too troubled to rebel. The 
bishops of to-day have grown either quite friendly towards the 
Oxford Movement, or else discreetly tolerant. Yet, when 
all this is admitted, it does nothing towards proving that 
Lord John Russell was a mistaken alarmist. The Durham 
Letter and its impassioned protest have been justified by the 
logic of events. It is easy for men to be charitable who 
have slipped their convictions. 



I90 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Possibly it was not judicious on Lord John's part to be 
so zealously affected in the matter. That is, perhaps, open 
to dispute, but the question remains ; Was he mistaken in 
principle ? He saw clergymen of the English Church, Pro- 
testant at least in name, ' leading their flocks step by step to 
the very verge of the precipice,' and he took up his parable 
against them, and pointed out the danger to the hitherto 
accepted faith and practice of the English Church. One of 
the most distinguished prelates of the AngUcan Church in 
the Queen's reign has not hesitated to assert that the tenets 
against which Lord John Russell protested in the Durham 
Letter were, in his judgment, of a kind which are ' destruc- 
tive of all reasonable faith, and reduce worship to a mere 
belief in spells and priestcraft.' Cardinal Vaughan, it is 
needless to say, does not sympathise with such a view. He, 
however, has opinions on the subject which are worthy of 
the attention of those who think that Lord John was a mere 
alarmist. His Eminence delivered a suggestive address at 
Preston on September lo, 1894, on the 'Re-Union of 
Christendom.' He thinks — and it is idle to deny that he has 
good ground for thinking — that, in spite of bishops, lawyers, 
and legislature, Delphic judgments at Lambeth, and spas- 
modic protests up and down the country, a change in doc- 
trine and ritual is in progress in the Anglican Church which 
can only be described as a revolution. He asserts that the 
' Real Presence, the sacrifice of the Mass, offered for the 
living and the dead, no infrequent reservation of the Sacra- 
ment, regular auricular confession. Extreme Unction, Purga- 
tory, prayers for the dead, devotions to Our Lady, to her 
Immaculate Conception, the use of her Rosary, and the in- 
vocation of saints, are doctrines taught and accepted, with a 
growing desire and relish for them, in the Church of England.' 



THE GIST OF THE WHOLE MATTER I9I 

Cardinal Vaughan also declares that the present churches 
of the Establishment are ' often distinguishable only with 
extreme difficulty from those belonging to the Church of 
Rome.' Such statements are either true or false. If false, 
they are open to contradiction ; if true, they justify in 
substance the position taken up in the Durham Letter. 
Towards the close of his life, Lord John told Mr. Lecky 
that he did not regret his action, and to the last he main- 
tained that he was right in the protest which he made 
in the Durham Letter. Yet he acknowledged, as he 
looked back upon the affair, that he might have softened 
certain expressions in it with advantage. Parliament met 
on February 4, 185 1, and the Queen's Speech contained 
the following passage : ' The recent assumption of certain 
ecclesiastical titles conferred by a foreign Power has ex- 
cited strong feelings in this country ; and large bodies of 
my subjects have presented addresses to me expressing 
attachment to the Throne, and praying that such assumptions 
should be resisted. I have assured them of my resolution 
to maintain the rights of my crown and the independence 
of the nation against all encroachments, from whatsoever 
quarter they may proceed.' 

Three days later. Lord John introduced the Ecclesiastical 
Titles Bill. The measure prohibited the assumption of terri- 
torial titles by Roman Catholic bishops ; but there is truth in 
the assertion that no enactment of the kind could prevent other 
persons from giving the dignitaries of the Catholic Church such 
titles, and, as a matter of fact, the attempt to deprive them of 
the distinction led to its ostentatious adoption. The proposal 
to render null and void gifts or religious endowments acquired 
by the new prelates was abandoned in the course of the 
acrimonious debates which followed. Other difficulties 



192 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

arose, and Ireland was declared to be exempt from the 
operation of the measure. The object of the bill, declared 
Lord John Russell, was merely to assert the supremacy of 
the Crown. Nothing was further from his thought than to 
play the part of a religious persecutor. He merely wished to 
draw a sharp and unmistakeable line of demarcation between 
the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope over the adherents of 
the Roman Catholic Church in the Queen's realms, and 
such an act of Papal aggression as was involved in the claim 
of Pius IX. to grant ecclesiastical titles borrowed from places 
in the United Kingdom. 

The bill satisfied neither the friends nor the foes of 
Roman Catholicism. It was persistently regarded by the 
one as an attack on religious liberty, and by the other as 
quite inadequate as a bulwark of Protestantism. Neverthe- 
less it became law, but not before the summer of 1851, 
when the agitation had spent its force. It was regarded 
almost as a dead letter from the first, and, though it remained 
on the Statute-book for twenty years, its repeal was a fore- 
gone conclusion. When it was revoked in 187 1 the temper 
of the nation had changed, and no one was inclined to make 
even a passing protest. John Leech, in a cartoon in Punchy 
caught the droll aspect of the situation with even more 
than his customary skill. Lord John rehshed the joke, 
even though he recognised that it was not likely to prove 
of service to him at the next General Election. In con- 
versation with a friend he said : ' Do you remember a 
cartoon in Punch where I was represented as a little boy 
writing " No Popery " on a wall and running away ? 
The answer was a smile of assent. ' Well,' he added, 
' that was very severe, and did my Government a great deal 
of harm, but I was so convinced that it was not maliciously 



A MINISTERIAL CRISIS I93 

meant that I sent for John Leech, and asked him what I 
could do for him. He said that he should like a nomination 
for his son to the Charterhouse, and I gave it to him. That 
is how I used my patronage.' 

Meanwhile, when the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill was still 
under discussion, a Ministerial crisis had arisen. Finance 
was never the strong point of the first Russell Administra- 
tion, and Sir Charles Wood's Budget gave widespread dis- 
satisfaction. Mr. Locke King heightened the embarrass- 
ment of the moment by bringing forward a motion for 
placing the county and borough franchise on an equal basis ; 
and before the discussion of the Budget could be renewed 
this motion was carried against the Government, though in 
a small House, by a majority of almost two to one. Lord 
John Russell met the hostile vote by immediate resignation ; 
and Lord Stanley — who four months later became Earl ot 
Derby — was summoned to Windsor and attempted to form 
a Ministry. His efforts were, however, unsuccessful, for 
Peel had left the Tory party not merely disorganised but 
full of warring elements. Lord John, therefore, returned to 
office in March, and Locke King's measure was promptly 
thrown out by a majority of more than two hundred. The 
London season of that year was rendered memorable by the 
opening of the Great Exhibition, amid universal plaudits and 
dreams of long-continued peace amongst the nations. As 
the year closed Lord Palmerston's ill-advised action over 
the Coup cfEtat in France brought about, as we have already 
seen, his dismissal, a circumstance which still further 
weakened the Russell Cabinet. 

The year 1852 opened darkly for Lord John. Difficulties, 
small and great, seemed thickening around him. He had 
been called to power at a singularly trying moment, and 



194 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

no one who looks dispassionately at the policy which he 
pursued between the years 1846 and 1852 can fail to 
recognise that he had at least tried to do his duty. There 
is a touch of pathos in the harassed statesman's reply 
to a letter of congratulation which reached him on the 
threshold of the new year from a near relative, and it is 
worthy of quotation, since it reveals the attitude of the man 
on far greater questions than those with which he was beset 
at the moment : ' I cannot say that the new year is a 
happy one to me. Political troubles are too thick for 
my weak sight to penetrate them, but we all rest in the 
mercy of God, who will dispose of us as He thinks best.' ^ 
When Parliament met in February, Lord Palmerston's 
opportunity came. On the heels of the panic about Papal 
aggression came widespread alarm as to the policy which 
Napoleon IIL might pursue towards this country. The 
fear of invasion grew strong in the land, and patriotic 
fervour restlessly clamoured for prompt legislative action. 
Forty years ago, in every town and village of England there 
were people who could speak from personal knowledge con- 
cerning the reign of terror which the first Napoleon, by his 
conquering march over Europe and his threatened descent 
on the English shores, had established, and, as a conse- 
quence, though with diminished force, the old consternation 
suddenly revived. 

Lord John Russell had no more real fear of Napoleon 
than he had of the Pope, but he rose to the occasion and 
brought before Parliament a measure for the reorganisation 
of the local Militia. He believed that such a force, with 
national enthusiasm at its back, was sufficient to repel 
invasion — a contingency which, in common with other re- 
' Life of LoTci John Russell, by Spencer Walpole, vol. ii p. 143. 



palmerston's ' tit-for-tat ' 195 

sponsible statesmen, he did not regard as more than remote. 
Lord Palmerston, however, posing as the candid friend 
of the nation, and the exceptionally well-informed ex- 
Foreign Minister, professed to see rocks ahead, and there 
were — at all events for the Russell Administration. In Eng- 
land, any appeal to the Jingo instincts of the populace is 
certain to meet with a more or less hysterical welcome, and 
Palmerston more than once took advantage of the fact. He 
expressed his dissatisfaction with Lord John's Militia Bill, 
and by a majority of eleven carried an amendment to it. 
Lord John met the hostile demonstration by resignation, 
and, though Palmerston professed to be surprised at such a 
result, his real opinion leaps to light in the historic sentence 
which he wrote to his brother on February 24 : 'I have had 
my tit-for-tat with John Russell, and I turned him out on 
Friday last.' One hitherto unpublished reminiscence of 
that crisis deserves to be recorded, especially as it throws 
into passing relief Lord John's generosity of temper : ' I 
remember,' states his brother-in-law and at one time private 
secretary, the Hon. George Elliot, 'being indignant with 
Lord Palmerston, after he had been dismissed by Lord John, 
bringing forward a verbal amendment on the Militia Bill in 
1852 — a mere pretext by which the Government was over- 
thrown. But Lord John would not at all enter into my 
feelings, and said, " It's all fair. I dealt him a blow, and he 
has given me one in return." ' 

Lord John's interest in the question of Parliamentary 
Reform was life-long. It was one of the subjects on which 
his views were in complete divergence with those of Lord 
Palmerston. Just before the 'tit-for-tat' amendment, the 
Premier brought forward a new scheme on the subject which 
he had reluctantly waived in 1849 i" deference to the wishes 

02 



196 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

of the majority of his colleagues, who then regarded such a 
proposal as premature. At the beginning of 1852 Lord 
John had overcome such obstacles, and he accordingly 
introduced his new Reform Bill, as if anxious to wipe out 
before his retirement from office the reproach which the 
sobriquet of ' Finality Jack ' had unjustly cast upon him. 
He proposed to extend the suffrage by reducing the county 
qualification to 20/., and the borough to 5/., and by granting 
the franchise to persons paying forty shillings yearly in direct 
taxation. He also proposed to abolish the property qualifi- 
cation of English and Irish members of Parliament, and to 
extend the boundaries of boroughs having less than 500 
electors. Lord Palmerston's hostile action of course com- 
pelled the abandonment of this measure, and it is worthy of 
passing remark that, on the night before his defeat. Lord 
John made a chivalrous and splendid defence of Lord 
Clarendon, in answer to an attack, not merely on the policy, 
but on the personal character of the Viceroy of Ireland. 

Sudden as the fall of the Russell Administration was, it 
can hardly be described as unexpected, and many causes, 
most of which have already been indicated in these pages, 
contributed to bring it about. Albany Fonblanque, one of 
the shrewdest contemporary observers of men and move- 
ments, gathered the political gossip of the moment together 
in a paragraph which sets forth in graphic fashion the tumult 
of opinion in the spring of 1852. ' Lord John Russell has 
fallen, and all are agreed that he is greatly to blame for 
falling ; but hardly any two men agree about the immediate 
cause of his fall. " It was the Durham Letter," says one. 
" Not a jot," replies another ; " the Durham Letter was quite 
right, and would have strengthened him prodigiously if it 
had been followed up by a vigorous anti-Papal measure : it 



A CONFLICT OF OPINION 197 

was the paltry bill that destroyed him." " The Ecclesiastical 
Titles Bill," interposes a third, " did just enough in doing 
next to nothing : no, it was the house tax in the Budget that 
did the mischief." " The house tax might have been got 
over," puts in another, "but the proposal of the income tax, 
with all its injustices unmitigated, doomed Lord John." 
" Not a whit," rejoins a Radical reformer, " the income tax 
is popular, especially with people who don't pay it ; Lord 
John's opposition to Locke King's motion sealed his fate." 
" Locke King's division was a flea-bite," cries a staunch Pro- 
testant, " the Pope has done it all." ' 

Stress has been laid in these pages on the attempts of 
the Russell Administration to deal with an acute and terrible 
phase of the eternal Irish problem, as well as to set forth in 
outline the difficulties which it encountered in regard to its 
foreign policy through the cavalier attitude and bid for per- 
sonal ascendency of Lord Palmerston. The five or six years 
during which Lord John Russell was at the head of affairs 
were marked by a succession of panics which heightened im- 
measurably the difficulties of his position. One was purely 
commercial, but it threw gloom over the country, brought 
stagnation to trade, and political discontent followed in its 
train, which in turn reacted on the prospects of the Govern- 
ment. The Irish famine and the rebellion which followed 
in its wake taxed the resources of the Cabinet to the utmost, 
and the efforts which were made by the Ministry to grapple 
with the evil have scarcely received even yet due recognition. 
The Chartist movement, the agitation over the Papal claims 
and the fear of invasion, are landmarks in the turbulent 
and menacing annals of the time. 

The repeal of the Navigation Act bore witness to Lord 
John's zealous determination to extend the principles of Free 



198 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Trade, and the Jewish Disabilities Bill — which was rejected 
by the House of Lords — is itself a sufficient answer to those 
who, because of his resistance, not to the spiritual claims, but 
to the political arrogance of the Vatican, have ventured to 
charge him with a lack of religious toleration. He himself 
once declared that as a statesman he had received as much 
favour as he had deserved ; he added that, where his 
measures had miscarried, he did not attribute the failure 
to animosity or misrepresentation, but rather to errors 
which he had himself committed from mistaken judgment 
or an erroneous interpretation of facts. No one who looks 
at Lord John Russell's career with simple justice, to say 
nothing of generosity, can doubt the truth of his words. ' I 
believe, I may say, that my ends have been honest. I have 
looked to the happiness of my country as the object to which 
my efforts ought to be directed.' 



199 



CHAPTER IX 

COALITION BUT NOT UNION 

1852-1853 

The Aberdeen Ministry — Warring elements —Mr. Gladstone's position 
— Lord John at the Foreign Office and Leader of the House— Lady- 
Russell's criticism of Lord Macaulay's statement— A small cloud in 
the East — Lord Shaftesbury has his doubts 

There is no need to linger over the history of the next few 
months, for in a poHtical sense they were barren and un- 
fruitful. The first Derby Administration possessed no ele- 
ments of strength, and quickly proved a mere stop-gap 
Cabinet. Its tenure of power was not only brief but inglori- 
ous. The new Ministers took office in February, and they 
left it in December. Lord Palmerston may be said to have 
given them their chance, and Mr. Gladstone gave them their 
coup de grace. The Derby Administration was summoned 
into existence because Lord Palmerston carried his amend- 
ment on the Militia Bill, and it refused to lag superfluous on 
the stage after the crushing defeat which followed Mr. 
Gladstone's brilliant attack on the Budget of Mr. Disraeli. 
The chief legislative achievement of this short-lived Govern- 
ment was an extension of the Bribery Act, which Lord John 
Russell had introduced in 184 1. A measure was now passed 
providing for a searching investigation of corrupt practices 
by commissioners appointed by the Crown. The affairs of 
New Zealand were also placed on a sound political basis. 



200 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

A General Election occurred in the summer, but before the 
new Parliament met in the autumn the nation was called to 
mourn the death of the Duke of Wellington. The old 
soldier had won the crowning victory of Waterloo four years 
before the Queen's birth, and yet he survived long enough 
to grace with his presence the opening ceremony of the 
Great Exhibition — that magnificent triumph of the arts of 
peace which was held in London in the summer of 1851. 
The remarkable personal ascendency which the Duke of 
Wellington achieved because of his splendid record as a 
soldier, though backed by high personal character, was not 
thrown on the side of either liberty or progress when the 
hero transferred his services from the camp to the cabinet. 
As a soldier, Wellington shone without a rival, but as a 
statesman he was an obstinate reactionary. Perhaps his 
solitary claim to political regard is that he, more than any 
other man, wrung from the weak hands of George IV. a 
reluctant consent to Catholic Emancipation — a concession 
which could no longer be refused with safety, and one which 
had been delayed for the lifetime of a generation through 
rigid adherence in high places to antiquated prejudices and 
unreasoning alarm. 

The strength of parties in the new Parliament proved to 
be nearly evenly balanced. Indeed, the Liberals were only 
in a majority of sixteen, if the small but compact phalanx of 
forty Peelites be left for the moment out of the reckoning. 
The Conservatives had, in truth, gained ground in the 
country through the reverses of one kind and another which 
had overtaken their opponents. Lord Palmerston, always 
fond, to borrow his own phrase, of striking from his own 
bat, declared in airy fashion that Lord John had given him 
with dismissal independence, and, though Lord Derby 



DISRAELI'S POSITION 201 

offered him a seat in his Cabinet, he was too shrewd and 
far-seeing a statesman to accept it. The Liberal party was 
divided about Lord Palmerston, and that fact led to vacilla- 
tion at the polHng booths. Ardent Protestants were disap- 
pointed that the Durham Letter had been followed by what 
they regarded as weak and insufficient legislative action, 
whilst some of the phrases of that outspoken manifesto still 
rankled in the minds of ardent High Churchmen. The old 
Conservative party had been smashed by Peel's adoption of 
Free Trade, and the new Conservative party which was 
struggling into existence still looked askance at the preten- 
sions of Mr. Disraeli, who, thanks to his own ability and to 
the persistent advocacy of his claims in earlier years by his 
now departed friend, Lord George Bentinck, was fairly seated 
in the saddle, and inclined to use both whip and spurs. 

In the autobiography recently published of the late Sir 
William Gregory ^ a vivid description will be found of the 
way in which the aristocracy and the squires ' kicked at the 
supremacy of one whom they looked at as a mountebank ; ' 
and on the same page will be found the remarkable assertion 
that it was nothing but Mr. Disraeli's claim to lead the 
Conservative party which prevented Mr. Gladstone from 
joining it in 1852.^ Disraeli's borrowed heroics in his 
pompous oration in the House of Commons on the occa- 
sion of the death of Wellington, and his errors in tactics 

• Sir William Gregory, K.CM.G. : an Autobiography, edited by 
Lady Gregory, pp. 92, 93. 

2 Mr. Gladstone's comment on this statement is that it is interesting 
as coming from an acute contemporary observer. At the same time it 
expresses an opinion and presents no facts. Mr. Gladstone adds that 
he is not aware that the question of re-union with the Conservative 
party was ever presented to him in such a way as to embrace the re- 
lations to Mr. Disraeli. 



202 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

and taste as leader of the House, heightened the pre- 
vaiUng impression that, even if the result of the General 
Election had been different, the Derby Administration was 
doomed to failure. All through the autumn the quidnuncs 
at the clubs were busy predicting the probable course of 
events, and more or less absurd rumours ran round the town 
concerning the statesmen who were likely to succeed to 
power in the event of Derby's resignation. The choice in 
reality lay between Russell, Palmerston, and Aberdeen, for 
Lansdowne was out of health, and therefore out of the 
question. 

As in a mirror Lady Russell's journal reflects what she 
calls the alarm in the Whig camp at the rumour of the 
intended resignation of the Derby Cabinet if Disraeli's 
financial proposals were defeated, and the hurried consulta- 
tions which followed between Lord Lansdowne, Lord Aber- 
deen, and Lord John, Sir James Graham, Mr. Cobden, and 
Mr. Bright. Two days before the division which overthrew 
the Government on December 17, Lord John was at Woburn, 
and his brother, the Duke of Bedford, asked him what 
course he thought the Queen should adopt in case the 
Ministry was beaten. He replied that her Majesty, under 
such circumstances, ought to send for Lord Lansdowne and 
Lord Aberdeen. This was the course which the Queen 
adopted, but Lord Lansdowne, old and ill, felt powerless to 
respond to the summons. Meanwhile, Lord John, who 
certainly possessed the strongest claims— a circumstance 
which was recognised at the time by Mr. Gladstone — had 
determined from a sense of public duty not to press them, 
for he recognised that neither Palmerston nor the Peelites, 
who, for the moment, in the nice balance of parties, com- 
manded the situation, would serve under him. He had led 



LORD ABERDEEN 203 

the Liberal forces for a long term of years, both in power and 
in opposition, and neither his devotion nor his ability was 
open to question, in spite of the offence which he had given, 
on the one hand to a powerful colleague, and on the other 
to powerful interests. 

Lord Aberdeen was regarded by the followers of Peel as 
their leader. He was a favourite at Court, and a statesman 
of established reputation of the doctrinaire type, but he 
was not a man who ever excited, or probably was capable 
of exciting, popular enthusiasm. On the day after Dis- 
raeli's defeat Lord Aberdeen met Lord John by chance 
in the Park, and the latter, waiving personal ambition, told 
him that, though he could say nothing decisive for the 
moment, he thought he should accept office under him. 
On the morrow Lord Aberdeen was summoned to Osborne, 
and accepted the task of forming an Administration. Next 
day her Majesty wrote to Lord John announcing the fact, 
and the letter ended with the following passage : 'The 
Queen thinks the moment to have arrived when a popular, 
efficient, and durable Government could be formed by the 
sincere and united efforts of all professing Conservative and 
Liberal opinions. The Queen, knowing that this can only 
be effected by the patriotic sacrifice of personal interests 
and feelings to the pubhc, trusts that Lord John Russell 
will, as far as he is able, give his valuable and powerful 
assistance to the realisation of this object.' This communi- 
cation found Lord John halting between two opinions. 
Palmerston had declined to serve under him, and he might, 
with even greater propriety, in his turn have refused to serve 
under Aberdeen, His own health, which was never strong, 
had suffered through the long strain of office in years which 
had been marked by famine and rebellion. He had just 



204 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

begun to revel, to quote his own words, in ' all the delights 
of freedom from red boxes, with the privilege of fresh air 
and mountain prospects.' 

He had already found the recreation of a busy man, and 
was engrossed in the preparation of the ' Memoirs and 
Journal ' of his friend, Thomas Moore. The poet had died 
in February of that year, and Lord John, with characteristic 
goodwill, had undertaken to edit his voluminous papers 
in order to help a widow without wounding her pride. 
In fact, on many grounds he might reasonably have stood 
aside, and he certainly would have done so if personal mo- 
tives had counted most with him, or if he had been the self- 
seeker which some of his detractors have imagined. Here 
Lord Macaulay comes to our help with a vivid account of 
what he terms an eventful day — one of the dark days before 
Christmas — on which the possibility of a Coalition Govern- 
ment under Aberdeen was still doubtful. Macaulay states 
that he went to Lansdowne House, on December 20, on a 
hasty summons to find its master and Lord John in consul- 
tation over the Queen's letter. He was asked his opinion of 
the document and duly gave it. ' Then Lord John said that 
of course he should try to help Lord Aberdeen : but how ? 
There were two ways. He might take the lead of the Com- 
mons with the Foreign Office, or he might refuse office, and 
give his support from the back benches. I adjured him not 
to think of this last course, and I argued it with him during a 
quarter of an hour with, I thought, a great flow of thoughts 
and words. I was encouraged by Lord Lansdowne, who 
nodded, smiled, and rubbed his hands at everything I 
said. I reminded him that the Duke of WeUington had 
taken the Foreign Office after having been at the Treasury, 
and I quoted his own pretty speech to the Duke. " You 



* SHOEBLACK' TO ABERDEEN 20$ 

said. Lord John, that we could not all win battles of 
Waterloo, but that we might all imitate the old man's 
patriotism, sense of duty, and indifference to selfish 
interests ; and vanities when the public welfare was con- 
cerned ; and now is the time for you to make a sacrifice 
Your past services and your name give us a right to expect 
it." He went away, evidently much impressed by what 
had been said, and promising to consult others. When 
he was gone, Lord Lansdowne told me that I had come just 
as opportunely as Bliicher did at Waterloo.' ^ It is only 
right to state that Lady Russell demurs to some parts of 
this account of her husband's attitude at the crisis. Nothing 
could be further from the truth than that Lord John's vacil- 
lation was due to personal motives, or that his hesitation 
arose from his reluctance to take any office short of the 
Premiership. Lady Russell adds 'this never for one 
moment weighed with him, so that he did not require Lord 
Macaulay or Lord Lansdowne to argue him out of the 
objection.' Lord John's difficulty was based upon the 
' improbability of agreement in a Cabinet so composed, and 
therefore the probable evil to the country.' Letters written by 
Lady Russell at the moment to a relative, of too private a 
character to quote, give additional weight to this statement. 
One homely remark made at the time may, however, be 
cited. Lady Russell declared that her husband would not 
mind being ' shoeblack to Lord Aberdeen ' if it would serve 
the country. 

The Aberdeen Ministry came into existence just as 
the year 1852 was ending. It was, in truth, a strange bit 
of mosaic work, fashioned with curious art, as the result 

' Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, by the Right Hon. Sir George 
Otto Trevelyan, M.P., vol. ii. p. 340. 



206 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

of negotiations between the Whigs and the Peelites which 
had extended over a period of nearly six months. It 
represented the triumph of expediency, but it awakened 
httle enthusiasm in spite of the much-vaunted abihty and 
experience of its members. Derby and Disraeh were left 
out on the one side and Cobden and Bright on the other, 
a circumstance, however, which did not prevent men com- 
paring the Coalition Government to the short-lived but 
famous Ministry of all the Talents. The nation rubbed its 
eyes and wondered whether good or evil was in store when 
It saw Peel's lieutenants rowing in the same boat with 
Russell. The vanished leader, however, was responsible for 
such a strange turn of the wheel, for everyone recognised 
that Sir Robert had ' steered his fleet into the enemy's port.' 
His followers came to power through the dilemma of the 
moment and the temporary eclipse of politicians of more 
resolute convictions. The Whigs were divided, and with 
Ireland they were discredited, whilst the Radicals were still 
clamouring at the doors of Downing Street with small chance 
of admission, in spite of their growing power in the country 
The little clique of Peelites played their cards adroitly, and 
though they were, to a large extent, a party without followers, 
they were masters of the situation, and Russell and Palmer- 
ston, in consequence, were the only men of commanding 
personality, outside their own ranks, who were admitted to 
the chief seats in the new Cabinet. Russell became 
Foreign Secretary, whilst Palmerston took control of the 
Home Office. 

So great was the rush for place that Lord Derby with a 
smile informed the Queen that, as so many former Ministers 
expected a seat, he thought that less than thirty-two could 
hardly be the number of the new Cabinet. Tories of the 



ONE OF life's little IRONIES 207 

old school looked on with amazement, and Radicals of 
the new with suspicion. All things seemed possible in the 
excitement of parties. 'Tom Baring said to me last night,' 
Greville remarks, ' " Can't you make room for DisraeU in this 
Coalition Government ? " I said : " Why, will you give him 
to us ? " " Oh yes," he said, " you shall have him with 
pleasure." ' Great expectations were, however, ruthlessly 
nipped in the bud, and the Cabinet, instead of being un- 
wieldy, was uncommonly small, for it consisted only of thir- 
teen members — an unlucky start, if old wives' fables are 
to be believed. Five of Sir Robert Peel's colleagues — the 
Premier, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir James Graham, Mr. ■ 
Sidney Herbert, and Mr. Gladstone— represented the mode- 
rately progressive views of their old leader. Russell and 
Palmerston represented the Whigs, but, thanks to one of 
life's little ironies, the statesman who passed the Reform 
Bill was installed for the moment at the Foreign Office, and 
the Minister who was a Liberal abroad and a Conservative 
at home was intrusted with the internal affairs of the nation. 
The truth was, Lord Palmerston was impossible at the 
Foreign Office if Lord Aberdeen was at the Treasury, for. 
the two men were diametrically opposed in regard to the 
policy which England ought to adopt in her relations with 
Europe in general, and Russia in particular. In fact, if 
Lord John Russell was for the moment out of the 
reckoning as Premier, Lord Palmerston ought unquestion- 
ably to have had the reversion of power. Unfortunately, 
though growingly popular in the country, he had rendered 
himself unwelcome at Court, where Lord Aberdeen, on the 
contrary, had long been a trusted adviser. 

Even if it be granted that neither Russell nor Palmerston 
v^^as admissible as leader, it was a palpable blunder to exclude 



208 LORD JOHN RUSSfiLL 

from Cabinet rank men of clean-cut convictions like Cobden 
and Bright. They had a large following in the country, 
and had won their spurs in the Anti-Corn-Law struggle. 
They represented the aspirations of the most active section 
of the Liberal Party, and they also possessed the spell which 
eloquence and sincerity never fail to throw over the imagi- 
nation of the people. They were not judged worthy, 
however, and Milner Gibson, in spite of his services as a 
member of the Russell Cabinet, was also debarred from 
office ; whilst Mr. Charles Villiers, whose social claims 
could not be entirely overlooked, found his not inconsider- 
able services to the people rewarded by subordinate rank. 
The view which was taken at Court of the Aberdeen Ministry 
is recorded in the * Life of the Prince Consort,' The Queen 
regarded the Cabinet as ' the realisation of the country's and 
our own most ardent wishes ; ' ^ and in her Majesty's view the 
words ' brilliant ' and ' strong ' described the new Govern- 
ment. Brilliant it might be, but strong it assuredly was not, 
for it was pervaded by the spirit of mutual distrust, and cir- 
cumstances conspired to accentuate the wide divergence 
of opinion which lurked beneath the surface harmony. 
However such a union of warring forces might be agree- 
able to the Queen, the belief that it realised the 'most 
ardent wishes ' of the nation was not widely held outside the 
Court, for ' England,' to borrow Disraeli's familiar but signi- 
ficant phrase, 'does not love Coahtions.' In the Aberdeen 
Cabinet, party interests were banded together in office ; 
but the vivifying influences of unity of conviction and 
common sentiment were absent from its deliberations. 
After all, as Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton drily remarked when 
the inevitable crisis arose, there is ' one indisputable element 
' Sir Theodore Martin's Life of the Prince Consort, vol. ii. p. 483. 



ABERDEEN AS DRIVER 209 

of a Coalition Government, and that is that its members 
should coalesce.' As a matter of fact, they not only drifted 
into war but drifted apart. ' It is a powerful team and will 
require good driving,' was the comment of a shrewd political 
observer. * There are some odd tempers and queer ways 
among them.' 

Lord Aberdeen had many virtues, but he was not a 
good driver, and when the horses grew restive and kicked 
over the traces, he lacked nerve, hesitated, and was lost. 
Trained for political life at the side of Pitt,^ after a distin- 
guished career in diplomacy, which made him known in all 
the Courts of Europe, he entered the Cabinet of the Duke of 
Wellington in 1828, and afterwards held the post of Secretary 
for the Colonies in the first Peel Administration of 1834, 
and that of Secretary for Foreign Affairs during Sir Robert's 
final spell of power in the years 1841-46. He never sat in 
the House of Commons, but, though a Tory peer, he voted 
for Catholic Emancipation. He swiftly fell into line, how- 
ever, with his party, and recorded his vote against the 
Reform Bill. He never, perhaps, quite understood the 
temper of a popular assembly, for he was a shy, reserved 
man, sparing in speech and punctilious in manner. Close 
association with WeUington and Peel had, of course, done 
much to shape his outlook on afiairs, and much acquaint- 
ance with the etiquette of foreign Courts had insensibly led 
him to cultivate the habit of formal reserve. Born in the 
same year as Palmerston, the Premier possessed neither 
the openness to new ideas nor the vivacity of his masterful 
colleague ; in fact. Lord Aberdeen at sixty-eight, unlike Lord 
Palmerston, was an old man in temperament, as well as 
conservative, in the sense of one not given to change. Yet, 
' Pitt became guardian to the young Lord Haddo in 1792. 

P 



210 LORD JOHN- RUSSELL 

it is only fair to add that, if Aberdeen's views of foreign 
policy were of a somewhat stereotyped kind, he was, at all 
events at this period in their careers, more progressive on 
home policy than Palmerston, who was too much inclined 
not to move for the social welfare of the people before he 
was compelled. 

The new Ministry ran well until it was hindered by com- 
plications in the East. In the middle of February, a few 
days after the meeting of Parliament, Lord John retired from 
the Foreign Office, and led the House through the session 
with great ability, but without taking office. It is important 
to remember that he had only accepted the Foreign Office 
under strong pressure, and as a temporary expedient. It was, 
however, understood that he was at liberty at any moment to 
relinquish the Foreign Office in favour of Lord Clarendon, if 
he found the duties too onerous to discharge in conjunction 
with the task of leadership in the Commons. The session 
of 1853 was rendered memorable by the display of Mr. 
Gladstone's skill in finance ; and the first Budget of the 
new Chancellor of the Exchequer was in every sense in 
splendid contrast with the miserable fiasco of the previous 
year, when Mr. Disraeli was responsible for proposals 
which, as Sir George Cornewall Lewis said, were of a kind 
that flesh and blood could not stand. The trade of 
the country had revived, and, with tranquility, some degree 
of prosperity had returned, even to Ireland. Lord John 
Russell, true to his policy of religious equality, brought 
forward the Jewish Disabilities Bill, but the House of Lords, 
with equal consistency, threw out the measure. The Law 
of Transportation was altered, and a new India Bill was 
passed, which threw open the Civil Service to competition. 
Many financial reforms were introduced, a new proposal was 



THE COALITION GOVERNMENT 211 

made for a wider extent of elementary education, and much 
legislative activity in a variety of directions was displayed. 

Lord Aberdeen had taken office under pressure and 
from a sense of duty. It had few attractions for him, and 
he looked forward with quiet satisfaction to release from its 
cares. Lord Stanmore's authority can be cited for the 
statement that in the summer of 1853 his father deemed 
that the time had come when he might retire in Lord John 
Russell's favour, in accordance with an arrangement which 
had been made in general terms when the Cabinet was 
formed. There were members of the Coalition Government 
who were opposed to this step ; but Lord Aberdeen antici- 
pated no serious difficulty in carrying out the proposal. 
Suddenly the aspect of affairs grew not merely critical but 
menacing, and the Prime Minister found himself confronted 
by complications abroad, from which he felt it would be 
despicable to retreat by the easy method of personal resig- 
nation. There is not the slightest occasion, nor, indeed, is 
this the place, to recount the vicissitudes of the Aberdeen 
Administration in its baffled struggles against the alternative 
of war. The achievements of the Coalition Government, 
no less than its failures, with much of its secret history, have 
already been told with praiseworthy candour and intimate 
knowledge by Lord Stanmore, who as a young m.an acted as 
private secretary to his father, Lord Aberdeen, through the 
stress and storm of those fateful years. It is therefore 
only necessary in these pages to state the broad outlines of 
the story, and to indicate Lord John Russell's position in 
the least popular Cabinet of the Queen's reign. 

Lord Shaftesbury jotted down in his journal, when the 
new Ministry came into office, these words, and they sum 
up pretty accurately the situation, and the common verdict 

p 3 



212 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

upon it : ' Aberdeen Prime Minister, Lord John Russell 
Minister for Foreign Affairs. Is it possible that this arrange- 
ment should prosper? Can the Liberal policy of Lord 
John square with the restrictive poUcy of Lord Aberdeen ? 
I wish them joy and a safe deliverance.' 



213 



CHAPTER X 

DOWNING STREET AND CONSTANTINOPLE 

1853 

Causes of the Crimean War —Nicholas seizes his opportunity — The Secret 
Memorandum — Napoleon and the susceptibilities of the Vatican — 
Lord Stratford de Redclifife and the Porte — Prince Menschik off shows 
his hand — Lord Aberdeen hopes against hope — Lord Palmerston's 
opinion of the crisis — The Vienna Note — Lord John grows restive 
— Sinope arouses England — The deadlock in the Cabinet. 

Many causes conspired to bring about the war in the 
Crimea, though the pretext for the quarrel — a dispute 
between the monks of the Latin and Greek Churches con- 
cerning the custody of the Holy Places in Palestine — presents 
no element of difficulty. It is, however, no easy matter to 
gather up in a few pages the reasons which led to the war. 
Amongst the most prominent of them were the ambitious 
projects of the despotic Emperor Nicholas. The military 
revolt in his own capital at the period of his accession, and 
the Polish insurrections of 1830 and 1850, had rendered him 
harsh and imperious, and disinclined to concessions on any 
adequate scale to the restless but spasmodic demands for 
political reform in Russia. Gloomy and reserved though the 
Autocrat of All the Russias was, he recognised that it would 
be a mistake to rely for the pacification of his vast empire on 
the policy of masterly inactivity. His war with Persia, his 
invasion of Turkey, and the army which he sent to help 



214 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Austria to settle her quarrel with Hungarj', not only ap- 
pealed to the pride of Russia, but provided so many outlets 
for the energy and ambition of her ruler. It was in the East 
that Nicholas saw his opportunity, and his policy was a 
revival, under the changed conditions of the times, of that 
of Peter the Great and Catherine IL 

Nicholas had long secretly chafed at the exclusion of 
his war-ships — by the provisions of the treaty of 1841 — 
from access through the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, 
and he dreamed dreams of Constantinople, and saw 
visions of India. Linked to many lawless instincts, there 
was in the Emperor's personal character much of the 
intolerance of the fanatic. Religion and pride alike 
made the fact rankle in his breast that so many of the 
Sultan's subjects were Sclavs, and professed the Russian 
form of Christianity. He was, moreover, astute enough 
to see that a war which could be construed by the simple 
and devout peasantry as an attempt to uplift the standard 
of the Cross in the dominions of the Crescent would 
appeal at once to the clergy and populace of Holy 
Russia. Nicholas had persuaded himself that, with Lord 
Aberdeen at the head of affairs, and Palmerston in a place 
of safety at the Home Office, England was scarcely in a 
condition to give practical effect to her traditional jealousy 
of Russia. In the weakness of her divided counsels he 
saw his opportunity. It had become a fixed idea with the 
Emperor that Turkey was in a moribund condition ; and 
neither Orloff nor Nesselrode had been able to disabuse his 
mind of the notion. 

Everyone is aware that in January 1853 the Emperor 
told the English Ambassador, Sir Hamilton Seymour, that 
Turkey was the ' sick man ' of Europe, and ever since 



NICHOLAS AND THE 'SICK MAN' 215 

then the phrase has passed current and become historic. 
It was often on the hps of Nicholas, for he talked freely, 
and sometimes showed so little discretion that Nesselrode 
once declared, with fine irony, that the White Czar could 
not claim to be a diplomatist. The phrase cannot have 
startled Lord Aberdeen. It must have sounded, indeed, 
like the echo of words which the Emperor had uttered 
in London in the summer of 1844. Nicholas, on the 
occasion of his visit to England in that year, spoke freely 
about the Eastern Question, not merely to the Duke of 
Wellington, whose military prowess he greatly admired, but 
also to Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen, who was then 
Minister for Foreign Affairs. He told the latter in so 
many words that Turkey was a dying man, and did his 
best to impress the three English statesmen with the necessity 
for preparation in view of the approaching crisis. He stated 
that he foresaw that the time was coming when he would 
have to put his armies in movement, and added that 
Austria would be compelled to do the same. He protested 
that he made no claim to an inch of Turkish soil, but was 
prepared to dispute the right of anyone else to an inch of it 
— a palpable allusion to the French support of Mehemet 
Ali. It was too soon to stipulate what should be done 
when the ' sick man's ' last hour had run its course. All he 
wanted, he maintained, was the basis of an understanding. 

In Nicholas's opinion England ought to make common 
cause with Russia and Austria, and he did not disguise his 
jealousy of France. It was clear that he dreaded the growth 
of close union between England and France, and for Louis 
PhiHppe then, as for Louis Napoleon afterwards, his feeling 
was one of coldness if not of actual disdain. The Emperor 
Nicholas won golden opinions amongst all classes during his 



2l6 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

short stay in England. Sir Theodore Martin's ' Life of the 
Prince Consort,' and especially the letter which is published 
in its pages from the Queen to King Leopold, showed the 
marked impression which was made at Windsor by his hand- 
some presence, his apparently unstudied confidences, the 
simplicity and charm of his manners, and the adroitness of 
his well-turned compliments. Whenever the Autocrat of All 
the Russias appeared in public, at a military review, or the 
Opera, or at Ascot, he received an ovation, and Baron 
Stockmar, with dry cynicism, has not failed to record the 
lavish gifts of ' endless snuff-boxes and large presents ' which 
made his departure memorable to the Court officials. Out 
of this visit grew, though the world knew nothing of it then, 
the Secret Memorandum, drawn up by Peel, Wellington, and 
Aberdeen, and signed by them as well as by the Emperor him- 
self. This document, though it actually committed England 
to nothing more serious than the recognition in black and 
white of the desperate straits of the Porte, and the fact that 
England and Russia were alike concerned in maintaining 
the status quo in Turkey, dwelt significantly on the fact that, 
in the event of a crisis in Turkey, Russia and England were 
to come to an understanding with each other as to what 
concerted action they should take. The agreement already 
existing between Russia and Austria was significantly 
emphasised in the document, and stress was laid on the fact 
that if England joined the compact, France would have no 
alternative but to accept the decision. 

There can be no question that Nicholas attached an 
exaggerated importance to this memorandum. It expressed 
his opinion rather than the determination of the Peel Ad- 
ministration ; but a half-barbaric despot not unnaturally 
imagined that when the responsible advisers of the Crown 



A FRIEND AT COURT 2\J 

entered into a secret agreement with him, no matter how 
vague its terms might appear when subjected to critical 
analysis, England and himself were practically of one mind. 
When the Coalition Government was formed, two of the 
three statesmen, whom the Emperor Nicholas regarded as 
his friends at Court, were dead, but the third, in the person 
of Lord Aberdeen, had succeeded, by an unexpected turn of 
the wheel, to the chief place in the new Ministry. Long before 
the Imperial visit to London the Emperor had honoured 
Lord Aberdeen with his friendship, and, now that the Foreign 
Minister of 1844 was the Prime Minister of 1853, the oppor- 
tune moment for energetic action seemed to have arrived. 
Nicholas, accordingly, now hinted that if the ' sick man ' 
died England should seize Egypt and Crete, and that the 
European provinces of Turkey should be formed into inde- 
pendent states under Russian protection. He met, however, 
with no response, for the English Cabinet by this time saw 
that the impending collapse of Turkey, on which Nicholas 
laid such emphatic stress, was by no means a foregone con- 
clusion. Napoleon and Palmerston had, moreover, drawn 
France and England into friendly alliance. There was no 
shadow of doubt that the Christian subjects of Turkey were 
grossly oppressed, and it is only fair to believe that Nicholas, 
as the head of the Greek Church, was honestly anxious to 
rid them of such thraldom. At the same time no one 
imagined that he was exactly the ruler to expend blood and 
treasure, in the risks of war, in the role of a Defender of the 
Faith. 

Count Vitzthum doubts whether the Emperor really 
contemplated the taking of Constantinople, but it is plain that 
he meant to crush the Turkish Empire, and England, knowing 
that the man had masterful instincts and ambitious schemes 



2l8 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

— that suggest, at all events, a passing comparison with 
Napoleon Bonaparte — took alarm at his restlessness, and the 
menace to India, which it seemed to suggest. ' If we do not 
stop the Russians on the Danube,' said Lord John Russell, 
'we shall have to stop them on the Indus.' It is now a 
matter of common knowledge that, when the Crimean War 
began, Nicholas had General Duhamel's scheme before him 
for an invasion of India through Asia. Such an advance, it 
was foreseen, would cripple England's resources in Europe 
by compelling her to despatch an army of defence to the 
East. It certainly looks, therefore, as if Russia, when hostili- 
ties in the Crimea actually began, was preparing herself for a 
sudden descent on Constantinople. Napoleon III,, eager to 
conciliate the religious susceptibilities of his own subjects, as 
well as to gratify the Vatican, wished the Sultan to make the 
Latin monks the supreme custodians of the Holy Places. 
Complications, the issue of which it was impossible to fore- 
cast, appeared inevitable, and for the moment there seemed 
only one man who could grapple with the situation at 
Constantinople. Lord Palmerston altogether, and Lord 
John Russell in part, sympathised with the clamour which 
arose in the Press for the return of the Great Elchi to the 
Porte. 

In the entjre annals of British diplomacy there is 
scarcely a more picturesque or virile figure than that of Lord 
Stratford de Redcliffe. Capacity for public affairs ran in 
the blood of the Cannings, as the three statues which to-day 
stand side by side in Westminster Abbey proudly attest. 
Those marble memorials represent George Canning, the 
great Foreign Minister, who in the famous, if grandiloquent, 
phrase ' called the New World into existence to redress the 
balance of the Old ; ' his son Charles, Earl Canning, first 



LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE 219 

Viceroy of India ; and his cousin, Stratford Canning, Viscount 
Stratford de Redcliffe, who for a long term of years sought 
to quicken into newness of social and poHtical life the broken 
and demoralised forces of the Ottoman Empire, and who 
practically dictated from Constantinople the policy of 
England in the East. He was born in 1786 and died in 
1 880. He entered the public service as a /rnvV-writer at 
the Foreign Office, and rose swiftly in the profession of diplo- 
macy. His acquaintance with Eastern affairs began in 1808, 
when he was appointed First Secretary to Sir Robert Adair, 
whom he succeeded two years later at Constantinople as 
Minister Plenipotentiary. The Treaty of Bucharest, which 
in 181 2 brought the war, then in progress between Russia and 
Turkey, to an end, was the first of a brilliant series of diplo- 
matic triumphs, which established his reputation in all the 
Councils of Europe, and made him, in Lord Tennyson's words, 
*The voice of England in the East.' After services in 
Switzerland, in Washington, and at the Congress of Vienna, 
Canning, in 1825, returned to Constantinople with the rank 
of Ambassador. 

He witnessed the overthrow of the Janissaries by 
Sultan Mahmoud II., and had his own experience of 
Turkish atrocities in the massacre which followed. He 
took a prominent part in the creation of the modern kingdom 
of Greece, and resigned his appointment in 1828, because 
of a conflict- of opinion with Lord Aberdeen in the early 
stages of that movement. Afterwards, he was gazetted 
Ambassador to St. Petersburg ; but the Emperor Nicholas, 
who by this time recognised the masterful quaUties of the 
man, refused to receive him — a conspicuous slight, which 
Lord Stratford, who was as proud and irascible as the Czar, 
never forgave. Between the years 1842 and 1858 he again 



220 LORD J041N RUSSELL 

filled his old position as Ambassador to Constantinople, and 
during those years he won a unique ascendency — unmatched 
in the history of diplomacy — over men and movements in 
Turkey. He brought about many reforms, and made it his 
special concern to watch over the interests of the Christian 
subjects at the Porte, who styled him the ' Padishah of the 
Shah,' and that title — Sultan of the Sultan — exactly hit off 
the authority which he wielded, not always wisely, but always 
with good intent. It was an unfortunate circumstance that 
Lord Stratford, after his resignation in 1852, should have been 
summoned back for a further spell of six years' tenure of 
power exactly at the moment when Nicholas, prompted by 
the knowledge of the absence from Constantinople of the 
man who had held him in check, and of the accession to 
power in Downing Street of a statesman of mild temper and 
friendly disposition to Russia, was beginning once more to 
push his claims in the East. Lord Stratford had many 
virtues, but he had also a violent and uncertain temper. He 
was a man of inflexible integrity, iron will, undeniable moral 
courage, and commanding force of character. Yet, for a great 
Ambassador, he was at times strangely undiplomatic, whilst 
the keenness of his political judgment and forecasts some- 
times suffered eclipse through the strength of his personal 
antipathies. 

Meanwhile, Lord John Russell, who had expressly stipu- 
lated when the Cabinet was formed that he was only to hold 
the seals of the Foreign Office for a few weeks, convinced 
already that the position was untenable to a man of his 
views, insisted on being relieved of the office. The diver- 
gent views in the Cabinet on the Eastern Question were 
making themselves felt, and Lord Aberdeen's eminently 
charitable interpretation of the Russian demands was 



FAREWELL TO THE FOREIGN OFFICE 221 

little to the minds of men of the stamp of Palmerston 
and Russell, neither of whom was inclined to pin his faith 
so completely to the Czar's assurances. When Parliament 
met in February, Lord John quitted the Foreign Office 
and led the House of Commons without portfolio. His 
quick recognition of Mr. Gladstone's great qualities as a 
responsible statesman was not the least pleasing incident of 
the moment. In April, Lord Aberdeen once more made 
no secret of his determination to retire at the end of the 
session, and this intimation no doubt had its influence with 
the more restive of his colleagues. 

When Parliament rose, Lord John Russell's position in 
the country was admitted on all hands to be one of 
renewed strength, for, set free from an irksome position, 
he had thrown himself during the session with ardour 
into the congenial work of leader of the House of 
Commons. The resolution of the Cabinet to send Lord 
Stratford to Constantinople has already been stated. He 
received his instructions on February 25 ; in fact, he 
seems to have dictated them, for Lord Clarendon, who had 
just succeeded to the Foreign Office, made no secret of the 
circumstance that they were largely borrowed from the 
Ambassador's own notes. He was told that he was to 
proceed first to Paris, and then to Vienna, in order that he 
might know the minds of France and Austria on the issues 
at stake. Napoleon HI. was to be assured that England 
relied on his cordial co-operation in maintaining the integrity 
and independence of the Turkish Empire. The young 
Emperor of Austria was to be informed that her Majesty's 
Government gladly recognised the fact that his attitude 
towards the Porte had not been changed by recent events, 
and that the policy of Austria in the East was not likely to 



222 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

be altered. Lord Stratford was to warn the Sultan and his 
advisers that the crisis was one which required the utmost 
prudence on their part if peace was to be preserved. 

The Sultan and his Ministers were practically to be told by 
Lord Stratford that they were the authors of their own misfor- 
tunes, and that, if they were to be extricated from them, they 
must place the ' utmost confidence in the sincerity and sound- 
ness of the advice ' that he was commissioned to give them. 
He was further to lay stress on palpable abuses, and to urge 
the necessity of administrative reforms. ' It remains,' added 
Lord Clarendon, ' only for me to say that in the event, which 
her Majesty's Government earnestly hope may not arise, of 
imminent danger to the existence of the Turkish Govern- 
ment, your Excellency will in such case despatch a messenger 
to Malta requesting the Admiral to hold himself in readiness; 
but you will not direct him to approach the Dardanelles 
without positive instructions from her Majesty's Government.' 
The etiquette of Courts has to be respected, especially by 
Ambassadors charged with a difficult mission, but Lord 
Stratford's diplomatic visits to Paris and Vienna were unduly 
prolonged, and occupied more time than was desirable at 
such a crisis. He arrived at Constantinople on April 5, 
and was received, to his surprise, with a remarkable personal 
ovation. In Kinglake's phrase, his return was regarded 
as that ' of a king whose realm had been suffered to fall 
into danger.' 

The Czar's envoy. Prince Menschikoff, had already been 
on the scene for five weeks. If Russia meant peace, the choice 
of such a representative was unfortunate. Menschikoff was 
a brusque soldier, rough and impolitic of speech, and by no 
means inclined to conform to accepted methods of procedure. 
He refused to place himself in communication with the 



TAKING THE BULL BY THE HORNS 223 

Foreign Minister of the Porte ; and this was interpreted at 
Stamboul as an insult to the Sultan. The Grand Vizier, 
rushing to the conclusion that his master was in imminent 
danger, induced Colonel Rose, the British Charge d' Affaires, 
to order the Mediterranean Fleet, then at Malta, to pro- 
ceed to Vourla. The Admiral, however, refused to lend 
himself to the panic, and sent back word that he waited 
instructions from London, a course which was afterwards 
approved by the Cabinet. The commotion at Stamboul was 
not lost upon Napoleon, though he knew that the English 
Cabinet was not anxious to precipitate matters. Eager to 
display his newly acquired power, he promptly sent instruc- 
tions to the French Fleet to proceed to Salamis. Meanwhile 
Prince Menschikofif, who had adopted a more conciliatory 
attitude on the question of the Holy Places, with the result that 
negotiations were proceeding satisfactorily, assumed shortly 
before the arrival of Lord Stratford a more defiant manner, 
and startled the Porte by the sudden announcement of new 
demands. He claimed that a formal treaty should be drawn 
up, recognising in the most ample, not to say abject, terms, 
the right of Russia to estabhsh a Protectorate over the 
Christian subjects of the Porte. This meant, as Lord 
Clarendon pointed out at the time, that fourteen millions of 
people would henceforth regard the Czar as their defender, 
whilst their allegiance to the Sultan would become little more 
than nominal, and the position of the Turkish ruler would 
inevitably dwindle from independence to vassalage. 

Lord Stratford at once took the bull by the horns. Act- 
ing on his advice, the Porte refused even to entertain such 
proposals until the question of the Holy Places was settled. 
Within a month, through Lord Stratford's firmness, Russia 
and Turkey came to terms over the original point in dispute ; 



224 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

but on the following day Menschikoff placed an ultimatum 
before the Porte, demanding that, within five days, his master's 
claim for the acknowledgment of the Russian Protectorate 
over the Sultan's Greek subjects should be accepted. The 
Sultan's Ministers, who interpreted the dramatic return of 
Lord Stratford to mean that they had England at their back, 
declined to accede, and their refusal was immediately followed 
by the departure of Prince Menschikoff. Repulsed in diplo- 
macy, the Czar, on July 2, marched forty thousand troops 
across the frontier river, the Pruth, and occupied Moldavia 
and Wallachia. The Imperial manifesto stated that it was 
not the Czar's intention to commence war, but only to obtain 
such security as would ensure the restoration of the rights of 
Russia. This was, of course, high ground to take, and a 
conference of the Great Powers was hastily summoned, with 
the result that the French view of the situation was embodied 
by the assembled diplomatists in the Vienna Note, which 
was despatched simultaneously to Russia and Turkey. Lord 
John Russell, even before the arrival of Lord Stratford at 
Constantinople, had come to the conclusion that the Emperor 
of Russia was determined to pick a quarrel with Turkey ; but 
Lord Aberdeen and his Peelite following were of another 
mind, and even Lord Clarendon seems for the moment to 
have been hoodwinked by the Czar's protestations. 

A month or two later the Foreign Minister saw matters 
in a different light, for he used in the House of Lords, in the 
summer of 1853, an expression which has become historic : 
' We are drifting into war.' The quarrel at this stage — for 
the susceptibilities of France and of Rome had been ap- 
peased by the settlement of the question of the Holy Places 
— lay between Russia and Turkey, and England might have 
compelled the peace of Europe if she had known her own 



CAUTION HAS ITS PERFECT WORK 22 5 

mind, and made both parties recognise in unmistakeable 
terms what was her policy. Lord John Russell had a policy, but 
no power to enforce it, whilst Lord Aberdeen had no policy 
which ordinary mortals could fathom, and had the power to 
keep the Cabinet— though scarcely Lord Stratford de Redcliffe 
—from taking any decided course. The Emperor Nicholas, 
relying on the Protocol which Lord Aberdeen had signed — 
under circumstances which, however, bore no resemblance 
to existing conditions— imagined that, with such a statesman 
at" the head of affairs, England would not take up arms 
against Russia. Lord Aberdeen, to add to the complica- 
tion, seemed unable to credit the hostile intentions of the 
Czar, even after the failure of the negotiations which fol- 
lowed the despatch of the Vienna Note. Yet as far back 
as June 19, Lord John Russell, in a memorandum to his 
colleagues, made a clear statement of the position of affairs. 
He held that, if Russia persisted in her demands and invaded 
Turkey, the interests of England in the East would compel 
us to aid the Sultan in defending his capital and his throne. 
On the other hand, if the Czar by a sudden movement 
seized Constantinople, we must be prepared to make war on 
Russia herself. In that case, he added, we ought to seek the 
alliance of France and Austria. France would willingly 
join ; and England and France together might, if it were 
worth while, obtain the moral weight, if not the material 
support, of Austria in their favour. 

Lord Aberdeen responded with characteristic caution. He 
refused to entertain warlike forecasts, and wished for liberty to 
meet the emergency when it actually arose. Lord Palmerston, 
a week or two later, made an ineffectual attempt to persuade 
the Cabinet to send the Fleet to the Bosphorus without fur- 
ther delay. ' I think our position,' were his words on July 7, 

Q 



226 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

' waiting timidly and submissively at the back door, whilst 
Russi-a is violently threatening and arrogantly forcing her 
way into the house, is unwise, with a view to a peaceful 
settlement.' Lord Aberdeen believed in the * moderation ' 
of a despot who took no pains to disguise his sovereign 
contempt for ' les chiens Turcs.' Lord Palmerston, on the 
other hand, made no secret of his opinion that it was the 
invariable policy of Russia to push forward her encroach- 
ment ' as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness ' 
of other Governments would allow. He held that her plan 
was to ' stop and retire when she was met with decided 
resistance,' and then to wait until the next favourable oppor- 
tunity arose to steal once more a march on Europe. There 
was, in short, a radical divergence in the Cabinet. When 
the compromise suggested in the Vienna Note was rejected, 
the chances of a European war were sensibly quickened, 
and all the more so because Lord Stratford, with his noto- 
rious personal grudge against the Czar, was more than any 
other man master of the situation. What that situation had 
become in the early autumn of 1853 is pithily expressed in 
a letter of Sir George Cornewall Lewis's to Sir Edmund 
Head : ' Everything is in a perplexed state at Constantinople. 
Russia is ashamed to recede, but afraid to strike. The 
Turks have collected a large army, and have blown up their 
fanaticism, and, reckoning on the support of England and 
France, are half inclined to try the chances of war. I think 
that both parties are in the wrong — Russia in making unjust 
demands, Turkey in resisting a reasonable settlement. 
War is quite on the cards, but I still persist in thinking it 
will be averted, unless some accidental spark fires the train.' ^ 

* Letters of Sir George Cornewall Letuis, Bart.^ edited by his 
brother, Canon Frankland Lewis, p. 270, 



THE VIENNA NOTE 227 

The Vienna Note was badly worded, and it failed as a 
scheme of compromise between the Porte and Russia. 
When it was sent in. a draft form to St. Petersburg the 
Czar accepted it, doubtless because he saw that its state- 
ments were vague in a sense which might be interpreted to 
his advantage. At Constantinople the document swiftly 
evoked protest, and the Divan refused to sanction it with- 
out alteration. England, France, and Austria recognised 
the force of the amendments of Turkey, and united in urging 
Russia to adopt them. The Emperor Nicholas, however, 
was too proud a man to submit to dictation, especially from 
the Sultan, with Lord Stratford at his elbow, and decHned 
to accede to the altered proposals. I^ord John deemed 
that Turkey had a just cause of complaint, not in the mere 
fact of the rejection of her alterations to the Vienna Note, 
but because they were rejected after they had been sub- 
mitted to the Czar. He told Lord Aberdeen that he hoped 
that Turkey would reject the new proposals, but he added 
that that would not wipe away the shame of their having 
been made. In a speech at Greenock, on September 19, 
Lord John said : ' While we endeavour to maintain peace, I 
certainly should be the last to forget that if peace cannot be 
maintained with honour, it is no longer peace. It becomes 
then but a truce — a precarious truce, to be denounced by 
others whenever they may think fit — whenever they may 
think that an opportunity has occurred to enforce by arms 
their unjust demands either upon us or upon our allies.' 

England and France refused to press the original Vienna 
Note on Turkey ; but as Austria and Prussia thought that 
their reasons for abandoning negotiations were scarcely of 
sufficient force, they in turn declined to adopt the same 
policy. The concert of Europe was, in fact, broken by the 

Q 2 



228 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

failure of the Vienna Note, and the chances of peace grew 
suddenly remote. There is a saying that a man likes to 
believe what he wishes to be the fact, and its truth was illus- 
trated at this juncture by both parties to the quarrel. The 
Czar persuaded himself that Austria and Prussia would give 
him their aid, and that England, under Aberdeen, was hardly 
likely to proceed to the extremity of war. The Sultan, on 
the other hand, emboldened by the movements of the French 
and English fleets, and still more by the presence and counsels 
of Lord Stratford, who was, to all intents and purposes, the 
master spirit at Constantinople, trusted— and with good 
reason as the issue proved — on the military support of Eng- 
land and France. It was plain enough that Turkey would 
go to the wall in a struggle with Russia, unless other nations 
which dreaded the possession of Constantinople by the Czar 
came, in their own interests, to her help. With the rejection 
by Russia of the Turkish amendments to the Vienna Note, 
and the difference of opinion which at once arose between 
the four mediating Powers as to the policy which it was best 
under the altered circumstances to pursue, a complete dead- 
lock resulted. 

Lord John's view of the situation was expressed in a 
memorandum which he placed before the Cabinet, and in 
which he came to these conclusions : ' That if Russia will 
not make peace on fair terms, we must appear in the field 
as the auxiliaries of Turkey ; that if we are to act in con- 
junction with France as principals in the war, we must act 
not for the Sultan, but for the general interests of the popu- 
lation of European Turkey. How, and in what way, requires 
much further consideration, and concert possibly with 
Austria, certainly with France.' He desired not merely to 
resist Rufssian aggression, but also to make it plain to the 



HOSTILITIES ON THE DANUBE 229 

Porte that we would in no case support it against its Christian 
subjects. The Cabinet was not prepared to adopt such a 
ppUcy, and. Lord John made no secret of his opinion that 
Lord Aberdeen's anxiety for peace and generous attitude 
toward the Czar were, in reaHty, provoking war. He be- 
lieved that the Prime Minister's vacillation was disastrous 
in its influence, and that he ought, therefore, to retire and 
make way for a leader with a definite policy. The Danube, 
for the moment, was the great barrier to war, and both Russia 
and Turkey were afraid to cross it. Lord John believed 
that energetic measures in Downing Street at this juncture 
would have forestalled, and indeed prevented, activity of a 
less peaceful kind on the Danube. Meanwhile, despatches, 
projects, and proposals passed rapidly between the Great 
Powers, for never, as was remarked at the time by a 
prominent statesman, did any subject produce so much 
writing. Turkey— perhaps still more than Russia— was 
eager for war. Tumults in favour of it had broken out at 
Constantinople ; and, what was more to the purpose, the 
finances and internal government of the country were in a 
state of confusion. Therefore, when the concert of the four 
Powers had been shattered, the Turks saw a better chance 
of drawing both England and France into their quarrel. At 
length, on October lo, the Porte sent an ultimatum to the 
commander of the Russian troops which had invaded Mol- 
davia and Wallachia, demanding that they should fall back 
beyond the Pruth within fifteen days. On October 22 the 
war-ships of England and France passed the Dardanelles in 
order to protect and defend Turkish territory from any 
Russian attack. The Czar met what was virtually a declara- 
tion of war by asserting that he would neither retire nor act 
on the aggressive. Ten days after the expiration of the 



230 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Stipulated time, Omar Pacha, the Ottoman commander in 
Bulgaria, having crossed the Danube, attacked and van- 
quished the Russians on November 4 at Oltenitza. The 
Czar at once accepted the challenge, and declared that he 
considered his pledge not to act on the offensive was no 
longer binding. The Russian fleet left Sebastopol, and, 
sailing into the harbour of Sinope, on the southern coast of 
the Black Sea, destroyed, on November 30, the Turkish 
squadron anchored in that port, and slew four thousand 
men. 

A significant light is thrown on the crisis in Sir Theo- 
dore Martin's ' Life of the Prince Consort,' ^ where it is stated 
that the Czar addressed an autograph letter to the Queen, 
' full of surprise that there should be any misunderstanding 
between her Majesty's Government and his own as to the 
affairs of Turkey, and appealing to her Majesty's "good 
faith " and " wisdom " to decide between them.' This letter, 
it is added, was at once submitted to Lord Clarendon for 
his and Lord Aberdeen's opinion. The Queen replied that 
Russia's interpretation of her treaty obligations in the par- 
ticular instance in question was, in her Majesty's judgment 
and in the judgment of those best qualified to advise her, 
' not susceptible of the extended meaning ' put upon it. The 
Queen intimated in explicit terms that the demand which the 
Czar had made was one which the Sultan could hardly con- 
cede if he valued his own independence. The letter ended 
with an admission that the Czar's intentions towards Turkey 
were * friendly and disinterested.' Sir Theodore Martin states 
that this letter, dated November 14, was submitted to Lord 
Aberdeen and Lord Clarendon, and was by them-' thought 
excellent.' Scarcely more than a fortnight elapsed when 

' Sir Theodore Martin's Life of the Prince Consort ^ ii. 530, 531. 



MAKING HASTE SLOWLY 23 1 

Russia's ' friendly and disinterested ' feelings were displayed 
in her cruel onslaught at Sinope, and the statesmen who had 
prompted her Majesty's reply received a rude awakening. It 
became plain in the light of accomplished events that the 
wisdom which is profitable to direct had deserted her 
Majesty's chief advisers. 

Lord Aberdeen always made haste slowly, and when other 
statesmen had abandoned hope he continued to lay stress on 
the resources of diplomacy. He admitted that he had long 
regarded the possibility of war between England and Russia 
with the ' utmost incredulity ; ' but even before Sinope his 
confidence in a peaceful solution of the difficulty was begin- 
ning to waver. He distrusted Lord Stratford, and yet he re- 
fused to recall him ; he talked about the ' indignity ' which 
Omar Pacha had inflicted on the Czar by his summons to 
evacuate the Principalities, although nothing could justify the 
presence of the Russian troops in Moldavia and Wallachia, 
and they had held their ground there for the space of three 
months. Even Lord Clarendon admitted that the Turks had 
displayed no lack of patience under the far greater insult of 
invasion. The ' indignity ' of notice to quit was, in fact, in- 
evitable if the Sultan was to preserve a vestige of self-respect. 
Lord Aberdeen was calmly drafting fresh plans of pacification, 
requiring the Porte to abstain from hostilities ' during the 
progress of the negotiations undertaken on its behalf ^ a 
fortnight after Turkey had actually sent her ultimatum to 
Russia ; and the battle of Oltenitza was an affair of history 
before the despatch reached Constantinople. Lord Stan- 
more is inclined to blame Lord John Russell forgiving 
the Turks a loophole of escape by inserting in the document 
the qualifying words ' for a reasonable time ; ' but his argu- 
^ Lord Stanmore's Earl of Aberdeen, p. 234. 



232 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

ment falls to the ground when it is remembered that this 
despatch was written on October 24, whilst the Turkish 
ultimatum had been sent to Russia on October 10. Sinope 
was a bitter surprise to Lord Aberdeen, and the ' furious 
passion' which Lord Stanmore declares it aroused in England 
went far to discredit the Coalition Ministry. 

Unfortunately, all through the crisis Lord Aberdeen 
appears to have attached unmerited weight to the advice of 
the weak members of his own Cabinet — men who, to borrow 
a phrase of Lord Palmerston's, were ' inconvenient entities in 
council,' though hardly conspicuous either in their powers of 
debate or in their influence in the country. Politicians of the 
stamp of the Duke of Newcastle, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and 
Sir James Graham played a great part in Downing Street, 
whilst for the moment men of superior ability like Palmerston 
and Russell found their advice unheeded. More than any 
other man. Sir James Graham, now almost a forgotten states- 
man, was Lord Aberdeen's trusted colleague, and the wisdom 
of his advice was by no means always conspicuous ; for 
rashness and timidity were oddly blended in his nature. 
' The defeat of the Turks at Sinope upon our element, the 
sea,' wrote the Prince Consort to Baron Stockmar, 'has 
made the people furious ; it is ascribed to Aberdeen having 
been bought over by Russia.' ^ The rumour which the 
Prince mentions about Lord Aberdeen was, of course, 
absurd, and everyone who knew the lofty personal character 
of the Prime Minister laughed it at once to scorn. Never- 
theless, the fact that the Prince Consort should have thought 
such a statement worth chronicling is in itself significant; and 
though no man of brains in the country held such a view, at 
least two-thirds of the educated opinion of the nation 
• Sir Theodore Martin's Life of the Prince Consort^ ii. 534. 



ENGLAND RESENTS SINOPE 233 

regarded the Prime Minister with increasing disfavour, as a 
man who had dragged England, through humiHating nego- 
tiations, to the verge of war. 

The destruction of the Turkish squadron at Sinope under 
the shadow of our fleet touched the pride of England to 
the quick. The nation lost all patience — as the con- 
temptuous cartoons of ' Punch ' show — with the endless 
parleyings of Aberdeen, and a loud and passionate cry for 
war filled the country. Lord Stanmore thinks that too much 
was made in the excitement of the ' massacre ' of the Turkish 
sailors, and perhaps he is right. However that may be, the 
fact remains that the Russians at Sinope continued to storm 
with shot and shell the Turkish ships when those on board 
were no longer able to act on the defensive — a naval 
engagement which cannot be described as distinguished for 
valour. Perhaps the indignation might not have been so 
deep and widespread if the English people had not re- 
cognised that the Coalition Government had strained con- 
cession to the breaking point in the vain attempt to pro- 
pitiate the Czar. All through the early autumn Lord 
Palmerston was aware that those in the Cabinet who were 
jealous of Russia had to reckon with ' private and verbal 
communications, given in all honesty, but tinctured by the 
personal bias of the Prime Minister,' to Baron Brunnow, 
which were doing 'irreparable mischief at St. Petersburg.^ 
The nation did not relish Lord Aberdeen's personal friend- 
ship with the Czar, and now that Russia was beginning to 
show herself in her true colours, prejudice against a Prime 
Minister who had sought to explain away difficulties was 
natural, however unreasonable. The English people, more- 
over, had not forgotten that Russia ruthlessly crippled Poland 

^ Life of Lord Palmerston^ by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, ii. 282. 



234 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

in 1 83 1, and lent her aid to the subjugation of Hungary in 
1849. If the Sultan was the Lord of Misrule to English 
imagination in 1853, the Czar was the embodiment of des- 
potism, and even less amenable to the modern ideas of 
liberty and toleration. The Manchester School, on the 
other hand, had provoked a reaction. The Great Exhibition 
had set a large section of the community dreaming, not of 
the millennium, but of Waterloo. Russia was looked upon 
as a standing menace to England's widening heritage in the 
East, and neither the logic of Cobden nor the rhetoric of 
Bright was of the least avail in stemming the torrent of 
national indignation. 

When the Vienna Note became a dead letter Lord 
Aberdeen ought either to have adopted a clean-cut policy, 
which neither Russia nor Turkey could mistake, or else 
have carried out his twice-repeated purpose of resignation. 
Everyone admits that from the outset his position was one 
of great difficulty, but he increased it greatly by his practical 
refusal to grasp the nettle. He was not ambitious of 
power, but, on the contrary, longed for his quiet retreat 
at Haddo. He was on the verge of seventy and was 
essentially a man of few, but scholarly tastes. There can be 
no doubt that considerable pressure was put upon him both 
by the Court and the majority of his colleagues in the 
Cabinet, and this, with the changed aspect of affairs, and the 
mistaken sense of duty with regard to them, determined his 
course. His decision ' not to run away from the Eastern 
complication,' as Prince Albert worded it, placed both 
himself and Lord John Russell in somewhat of a false 
position. If Lord Aberdeen had followed his own inclina- 
tion there is every likelihood that he would have carried 
out his arrangement to retire in favour of Lord John. His 



THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER 235 

colleagues were not in the dark in regard to this arrange- 
ment when they joined the Ministry, and if not prepared 
to fall in with the proposal, they ought to have stated 
their objections at the time. There is some conflict of 
opinion as to the terms of the arrangement ; but even if we 
take it to be what Lord Aberdeen's own friends represent it 
— not an absolute but a conditional pledge to retire — Lord 
Aberdeen was surely bound to ascertain at the outset 
whether the condition was one that could possibly be 
fulfilled. If the objection of his colleagues to retain office 
under Lord John as Prime Minister was insurmountable, 
then the qualified engagement to retire— if the Government 
would not be broken up by the process— was worthless, and 
Lord John was being drawn into the Cabinet by assurances 
given by the Prime Minister alone, but which he was power- 
less to fulfil without the co-operation of his colleagues. Lord 
Aberdeen was therefore determined to remain at his post, 
because Lord John was unpopular with the Cabinet, and 
Palmerston with the Court, and because he knew that the 
accession to power of either of them would mean the 
adoption of a spirited foreign policy. 



236 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



CHAPTER XI 

WAR HINDERS REFORM 

1854-1855 

A Scheme of Reform — Palmerston's attitude— Lord John sore let and 
hindered — Lord Stratford's diplomatic triumph — The Duke of New- 
castle and the War Office — The dash for Sebastopol— Procrastina- 
tion and its deadly work — The Alma— Inkerman —The Duke's 
blunder — Famine and frost in the trenches. 

All through the autumn of 1854 Lord John Russell was busy 
with a scheme of Parliamentary reform. The Government 
stood pledged to bring forward the measure, though a section 
of the Cabinet, and, notably Lord Palmerston, were opposed 
to such a course. As leader of the House, Lord John had 
announced that the question would be introduced to Parlia- 
ment in the spring, and the Cabinet, therefore, took the 
subject into consideration when it resumed its meetings 
in November. A special committee was appointed, and 
Lord John placed his proposals before it. Every borough 
with less than three hundred electors was to be disfranchised, 
and towns with less than five hundred electors were to lose 
one of their representatives. Seventy seats, he argued, 
would be gained by this plan, and he suggested that they 
should be divided between the largest counties and the great 
towns. He proposed greatly diminishing the qualifications 
alike in counties and boroughs. He laid stress on the 



PALMERSTON AND REFORM 237 

necessity of calling into existence triangular constituencies, 
in which no elector should have the power to vote for more 
than two of the three candidates, and wished also to deprive 
the freemen of their guild qualification. Lord Palmerston 
had no relish for the subject. His predilections, in fact, 
leaned in quite the opposite direction. If his manner was 
genial, his temper was conservative, and he was inclined to 
smile, if not to scoff, at politicians who met such problems 
of government with other than a light heart. He was there- 
fore inclined at this juncture to adopt Lord Melbourne's 
attitude, and to meet Lord John with that statesman's famous 
remark, .' Why can't you let it alone ? ' 

Devotion to one idea, declared Goethe, is the condition 
of all greatness. Lord John was devoted from youth to age 
to the idea of Parliamentary reform, and in season and out 
was never inclined to abandon it. Probably Lord Palmer- 
ston would have adopted a less hostile attitude if he had 
been in his proper element at the Foreign Office ; but being 
Home Secretary, he was inclined to kick against a measure 
which promised to throw into relief his own stationary 
position on one of the pet subjects of the party of progress. 
Whilst the Cabinet was still engaged in thrashing the subject 
out, tidings of the battle of Sinope reached England, and the 
popular indignation against Russia, which had been gathering 
all the autumn, burst forth, as has already been stated, into a 
fierce outcry against the Czar. Two days after the news of 
Russia's cowardly attack had been confirmed, Palmerston 
saw his opportunity, and promptly resigned. Doubtless 
such a step was determined by mixed motives. Objec- 
tions to Lord John's proposals for Parhamentary reform at 
best only half explains the position, and behind such repug- 
nance lay hostility to Lord Aberdeen's vacillating policy on 



238 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



1 



the Eastern Question. The nation accepted Lord Pahner- 
ston's resignation in a matter-of-fact manner, which probably 
surprised no one more than himself. The Derbyites, oddly 
enough, made the most pother about the affair ; but a man 
on the verge of seventy, and especially one like Lord 
Palmerston with few illusions, is apt to regard the task of 
forming a new party as a game which is not worth the 
candle. The truth is, Palmerston, like other clever men 
before and since, miscalculated his strength, and on 
Christmas Eve was back again in office. He had received 
assurances from his colleagues that the Reform proposals 
were still open to discussion ; and, as the Cabinet had taken 
in his absence a decision on Turkish affairs which was in 
harmony with the views that he had persistently advocated, 
he determined to withdraw his resignation. 

The new year opened darkly with actual war, and with 
rumours of it on a far more terrible scale. ' My expectation 
is,' wrote Sir G. C. Lewis on January 4, ' that before long 
England and France will be at war with Russia ; and as long 
as war lasts all means of internal improvement must slumber. 
The Reform Bill must remain on the shelf — if there is war ; 
for a Government about to ask for large supplies and to im- 
pose war taxes, cannot propose a measure which is sure to 
create dispersion and to divide parties.' France, in spite 
of the action of the Emperor over the question of the Holy 
Places, had not displayed much interest in the quarrel ; but 
a contemptuous retort which Nicholas made to Napoleon 
HL's final letter in the interests of peace put an end to the 
national indifference. The words ' Russia will prove herself 
in 1854 what she was in 181 2,' cut the national pride to the 
quick, and the cry on that side of the Channel as on this, 
was for war with Russia. The Fleets were ordered to enter the 



AN INDIGNANT PROTEST 239 

Black Sea, and on February 27 England and France sent a 
joint ultimatum to St. Petersburg, demanding that the Czar's 
troops should evacuate the Principalities by April 30. 

The interval of suspense was seized by Lord John to 
place the Reform proposals of the Government before the 
House of Commons ; but the nation was by this time restless, 
dissatisfied, and preoccupied, for the blast of the trumpet 
seemed already in the air. The second reading of the 
measure was fixed for the middle of March ; but the in- 
creasing strain of the Eastern Question led Lord John to 
announce at the beginning of that month that the Govern- 
ment had decided not to bring forward the second reading 
until the end of April. This announcement led to a 
personal attack, and one member, whose name may be 
left in the oblivion which has overtaken it, had the audacity 
to hint that the leader of the House had never intended 
to proceed with the measure. Stung into sudden indigna- 
tion by the taunt. Lord John promptly expressed his 
disdain of the opinion of a politician who had no claim 
whatever to speak in the name of Reform, and went on, with 
a touch of pardonable pride, to refer to his own lifelong 
association with the cause. When he turned to his op- 
ponent with the words, ' Does the honourable gentleman 

think he has a right to treat me ,' the House backed and 

buried his protest with its generous cheers. Lord John 
Russell, in power or out of it, was always jealous for the 
reputation of the responsible statesmen of the nation, and he 
did not let this occasion pass without laying emphasis on 
that point. ' I should be ashamed of myself if I were to 
prefer a concern for my own personal reputation to that 
which I understood to be for the interests of my country. 
But it seems to me that the character of the men who rule 



240 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

this country — whether they be at the moment in office or in 
opposition — is a matter of the utmost interest to the people 
of this country, and that it is of paramount importance that 
full confidence should be reposed in their character. It is, in 
fact, on the confidence of the people in the character of pub- 
lic men that the security of this country in a great degree de- 
pends.' 

A few days later it became plain that war was at hand, and 
a strong feeling prevailed in Parliament that the question of 
Reform ought to be shelved for a year. Lord John's position 
was one of great difficulty. He felt himself pledged on the 
subject, and, though recognising that a great and unexpected 
emergency had arisen, which altered the whole political out- 
look, he knew that with Lord Palmerston and others in the 
Ministry the question was not one of time, but of principle. 
The sinews of war had to be provided. Mr. Gladstone pro- 
posed to double the income tax, and Lord John urged that 
a period of increased taxation ought to be a period of 
widened political franchise. He therefore was averse to 
postponement, unless in a position to assure his Radical 
following that the Government recognised that it was com- 
mitted to the question. Lord Aberdeen was only less anxious 
than Lord John for the adoption of a progressive and en- 
lightened home policy ; in fact, his attitude in his closing 
years on questions like Parliamentary reform was in marked 
contrast to his rigidly conservative views on foreign policy. 
He therefore determined to sound the Cabinet advocates of 
procrastination as to their real feeling about Reform, with 
the result that he saw clearly that Lord John Russell's fears 
were not groundless, since Lord Palmerston and Lord 
Lansdowne bluntly declared that they meant to retire from 
office if the Government went forward with the Bill. 



' GOD DEFEND THE RIGHT ' 24I 

Lord John felt that he could not withdraw the Bill un- 
conditionally, and therefore resignation seemed the only 
honourable course which was left. After deliberate con- 
sideration he could see no other choice in the matter, and, 
on April 8, relinquished his seat in the Cabinet. The Court, 
the Prime Minister and his colleagues saw at once the gravity 
of the position, for the Liberal party were restive enough 
under . Lord Aberdeen, without the withdrawal from his 
Cabinet of a statesman of the first rank, who was not anxious 
for peace at any price. Lord John's position in the 
country at the moment rendered it probable that a quarrel 
with him would bring about the downfall of the Govern- 
ment. His zeal for Reform won him the respect and support 
of the great towns, and the determination which he shared 
with Palmerston to resist the intolerable attitude of the 
Czar made him popular with the crowd. A recent speech, 
delivered when Nicholas had recalled his Ambassador 
from London, had caught, moreover, the sympathies of all 
classes of the community. ' For my part, if most unexpec- 
tedly the Emperor of Russia should recede from his former 
demands, we shall all rejoice to be spared the pain, the 
efforts, and the burdens of war. But if peace is no longer 
consistent with our duty to England, with our duty to 
Europe, with our duty to the world, we can only endeavour 
to enter into this contest with a stout heart. May God 
defend the right, and I, for my part, shall be willing to bear 
my share of the burden and the responsibility.' 

John Leech, in one of his inimitable cartoons in ' Punch,' 
caught the situation with a flash of insight which almost 
amounted to genius, and Lord John became the hero of 
the hour. One verse out of a spirited poem entitled ' God 
defend the Right,' which appeared in * Punch ' at the time, 

R 



242 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

may be quoted in passing, especially as it shows the patriotic 
fervour and the personal enthusiasm which Lord John 
Russell's speech evoked in the country : 

'From humble homes and stately domes the cry goes through the air, 
With the loftiness of challenge, the lowliness of prayer, 

Honour to him who spoke the words in the Council of the Land, 
To find faith in old England's heart, force in old England's hand.' 

A week before the appearance of these lines, the cartoon 
in ' Punch ' represented Lord Aberdeen, significantly arrayed 
in Windsor uniform, vainly attempting to hold back the 
strugghng British lion, which sees the Russian bear in the 
distance, and exclaiming, ' I must let him go.' 

Lord John's resignation meant much, perhaps everything, 
to the Government. Great pressure was put upon him. 
The Queen and the Cabinet alike urged him to abandon his 
intention of retirement ; whilst Lord Palmerston, with that 
personal chivalry which was characteristic of him, declared 
that in a moment of European crisis he could be better 
spared, and was ready to resign if Lord John insisted upon 
such terms, as the price for his own continuance in office. 
Every day the situation abroad was becoming more critical, 
and Lord John saw that it might imperil greater interests 
than any which were bound up with the progress of a party 
question to resist such appeals. He, therefore, on April ii 
withdrew his resignation, and received an ovation in the 
House of Commons when he made it plain that he was 
willing to thrust personal considerations aside in the interests 
of his colleagues, and for the welfare of his country. Mr. 
Edward Miall has described the scene. ' " If it should be 
thought that the course he was taking would damage the 
cause of Reform " — the noble Lord paused, choked with the 
violence of his own emotions. Then arose a cheer from 



THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 243 

both sides of the House, loud and long continued. . . . 
Every eye was glistening with sudden moisture, and every 
heart was softened with genuine sympathy. . . . The effect 
was electric. Old prejudices long pent up, grudges, ac- 
cumulated discontents, uncharitable suspicions, all melted 
away before that sudden outburst of a troubled heart." ' ^ 

Throughout the spring diplomacy was still busy, though 
it became every week more and more apparent that hostilities 
were inevitable. Lord Stratford achieved, what Lord Cla- 
rendon did not hesitate to term, a ' great diplomatic triumph ' 
when he won consent from the Porte to fresh terms in the 
interests of peace, which met with the approval, not only of 
England and France, but also of Austria and Prussia. The 
Czar began at length to realise the gravity of the situation 
when Austria moved in February fifty thousand men to the 
frontier of the territory which Russia had seized. When the 
Russian troops, a few months later, evacuated the Princi- 
pahties, Austria and Prussia, whose alliance had been formed 
in defence of the interests of Germany, were no longer 
directly concerned in the quarrel. Thus the war which Eng- 
land and France declared at the end of March against Russia 
was one which they were left to pursue, with the help of 
Turkey, alone. Lord John Russell urged that it should be 
short and sharp, and with characteristic promptitude sketched 
out, with Lord Panmure's help, a plan of campaign. He 
urged that ten thousand men should at once be raised for 
the Army, five thousand for the Navy, and that the services 
of fifteen thousand more be added to the Militia. He laid 
stress on the importance of securing the active aid of 
Austria, for he thought that her co-operation might make the 
difference between a long and a short war. He proposed 

1 Life of Edzuard Miall, M.P., by A. Miall, p. 179. 

R 2 



244 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

that Sweden should be drawn into the AlHance, with the 
view^ of striking a blow at Russia in the North as well as 
on her southern frontier. He also proposed that English 
and French troops should be massed at Constantinople, 
and submitted a plan of operations for the consideration of 
the Cabinet. 

Lord John knew perfectly well that radical changes 
were imperative in the administration of the Army. The 
Secretary for War was, oddly enough. Secretary for the 
Colonies as well, and there was also a Secretary at War, 
who controlled the finances at the bidding of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief. The Ordnance Department was under 
one management, the Commissariat under another, whilst 
the Militia fell within the province of a third, in the shape 
of the Home Office. Lord John Russell had seen enough 
of the outcome of divided counsels in the Cabinet, and 
insisted, in emphatic terms, on the necessity of separating 
the duties of the War and Colonial Departments, and of 
giving the Minister who held the former post undisputed 
control over all branches of the executive. 

It was perhaps an undesigned coincidence, but none 
the less unfortunate, that the statesmen in the Aberdeen 
Government who were directly concerned with the war were 
former colleagues of Sir Robert Peel. Lord Aberdeen's re- 
pugnance to hostilities with Russia was so notorious that 
the other Peelites in the Cabinet fell under the suspicion of 
apathy; and the nation, exasperated at the Czar's bombastic 
language and high-handed action, was not in the mood to 
make fine distinctions. The Duke of Newcastle and his 
riend, Mr. Sidney Herbert, were regarded, perhaps unjustly, 
as lukewarm about the approaching campaign ; but it was 
upon the former that the brunt of public censure ultimately 



THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE'S FAILURE 245 

fell. The Duke was Secretary for War and the Colonies. 
It was an odd combination of offices which had existed for 
more than half a century. The tradition is that it had 
been brought about in order that the Secretary for the 
Colonies, who at the beginning of the century had com- 
paratively little to do, but who possessed large patronage, 
might use that patronage on behalf of deserving military men. 

In the immediate prospect of hostilities, it was felt to be 
imperative that two posts of such responsibility should not 
be held by the same Minister ; but the Duke was adverse to 
the proposed change. It was, however, brought about in 
the early summer, and the Duke was given his choice of the 
two posts. He decided to relinquish the Colonies, and 
thus the burden of the approaching conflict fell upon him 
by his own deliberate act. Sir George Grey was appointed 
to the vacant office. The Duke of Newcastle's ambition out- 
stripped his ability, and the choice which he made was 
disastrous both to himself and to the nation. Because 
some men are born great, they have greatness of another 
kind thrust upon them ; and too often it happens that 
responsibility makes plain the lack of capacity, which the 
glamour neither of rank nor of place can long conceal. The 
Duke of Newcastle was born to greatness — for in the middle 
of the century the highest rank in the Peerage counted for 
more in politics than it does to-day — but he certainly did 
not achieve it as War Minister. 

There is no need to relate here the more than twice-told 
story of the Crimean War. Its incidents have been 
described by historians and soldiers ; and, of late, gallant 
officers who took part in it have retraced its course and 
revived its memories. In one sense it is a glorious chapter 
in the annals of the Queen's reign, and yet there are cir- 



246 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

cumstances connected with it which every Enghshman, 
worthy of the name, would gladly forget. Although the 
nation did not take up arms with a light heart, its judgment 
was clouded by passion ; and the first great war since 
Waterloo caught the imagination of the people, especially 
as Lord Raglan, one of the old Peninsular heroes, was in 
command of the Army of Invasion. England and France 
were not satisfied merely to blockade the Black Sea and 
crush the commerce of Russia. They determined to strike 
at the heart of the Czar's power in the East, and therefore 
the Allies made a dash at the great arsenal and fort of 
Sebastopol. It did not enter into their reckoning that there 
might be a protracted siege. What they anticipated was a 
swift march, a sudden attack, and the capture of the strong- 
hold by bombardment. The allied forces— 25,000 English 
soldiers, 23,000 French, and about 5,000 Turks -landed in 
the Crimea in September, 1854, and stormed the heights of 
the Alma on the 20th of that month. Then they hesitated, 
and their chance of reducing Sebastopol that autumn was lost. 
* I have been very slow to enter into this war,' said Lord 
Aberdeen to an alderman at a banquet in the City. ' Yes,' 
was the brusque retort, ' and you will be equally slow to get 
out of it.' 

Divided counsels prevailed in the camp as well as in 
the Cabinet. Cholera attacked the troops, and stores 
began to fail. Prince Menschikoff, defeated at Alma, 
seized the opportunity which the delay gave him to render 
the harbour of Sebastopol impassable to hostile ships ; and 
General Todleben brought his skill as an engineer to the 
task of strengthening by earthworks the fortifications of the 
Russian stronghold. The Allies made the blunder of march- 
ing on Sebastopol from the southern instead of the northern 



BALACLAVA AND INKERMAN 247 

side of the harbour, and this gave time to the enemy to 
receive strong reinforcements, with the result that 120,000 
men were massed behind the Russian fortifications. Mean- 
while a rumour that Sebastopol had fallen awakened short- 
lived rejoicings in England and France. The tidings were 
contradicted in twenty-four hours, but most people thought, 
on that exciting 3rd of October, that the war was virtually 
at an end. The Emperor Napoleon announced the ima- 
ginary victory of their comrades in arms to his assembled 
troops. Even Mr. Gladstone was deceived for the moment, 
and there is a letter of his in existence to one of the most 
prominent of his colleagues, full of congratulation at such a 
result. The chagrin of the nation was great when it learnt 
that the Russians were not merely holding their own, but 
were acting on the aggressive; whilst the disappointment was 
quickened by the lack of vigour displayed by the Cabinet. 
The Allies fought, on October 25, the glorious yet indeci- 
sive battle of Balaclava, which was for ever rendered memor- 
able by the useless but superb charge of the Light Brigade. 
Less than a fortnight later, on November 5, the Russians 
renewed the attack, and took the English by surprise. A 
desperate hand-to-hand struggle against overwhelming odds 
ensued. Then the French came to the aid of the English 
troops, and the battle of Inkerman was won. 

As the winter approached, the positionof the Allies grew 
perilous, and it seemed likely that the plans of the invaders 
would miscarry, and the besieging Allies be reduced to the 
position of the besieged. Before the middle of November 
winter set in with severity along the shores of the Black Sea, 
and a hurricane raged, which destroyed the tents of the troops, 
and wrecked more than a score of ships, which were carry- 
ing stores of ammunition and clothing. As the winter 



248 LORD JOHN RUSSELT, 

advanced, with bleak winds and blinding snow, the shivering, 
ill-fed soldiers perished in ever-increasing numbers under the 
twofold attack of privation and pestilence. The Army had 
been despatched to the Crimea in the summer, and, as 
no one imagined that the campaign would last beyond the 
early autumn, the brave fellows in the trenches of Sebastopol 
were called to confront the sudden descent of winter without 
the necessary stores. It was then that the War Office awoke 
slowly to the terrible nature of the crisis. Lord John Russell 
had made his protest months before against the dilatory action 
of that department, and, though he knew that personal odium 
was sure to follow, endeavoured at the eleventh hour to 
persuade Lord Aberdeen to take decisive action. ' We are 
in the midst of a great war,' were his words to the Premier 
on November 17. * In order to carry on that war with 
efficiency, either the Prime Minister must be constantly 
urging, hastening, completing the military preparations, or 
the Minister of War must be strong enough to control other 
departments.' He went on to contend that the Secretary 
of State for War ought to be in the House of Commons, and 
that he ought, moreover, to be a man who carried weight in 
that assembly, and who brought to its debates not only 
vigour of mind but experience of military details. ' There is 
only one person belonging to the Government,' added Lord 
John, ' who combines these advantages. My conclusion is 
that before Parliament meets Lord Palmerston should be 
entrusted with the seals of the War Department.' 

This was, of course, an unwelcome proposition to Lord 
Aberdeen, and he met it with the declaration that no one man 
was competent to undertake the duties of Secretary of State 
for War and those of Secretary at War. He considered that 
the latter appointment should be held in connection with 



INCAPACITY IN HIGH PLACES 249 

the finances of the Army, and in independence of the Secre- 
tary for the War Department. Lord John repHed that either 
the Prime Minister must himself be the acting and moving 
spirit of the whole machine, or else the Secretary for War 
must have delegated authority to control other departments,' 
and added, ' neither is the case under the present regime.^ 
Once more, nothing came of the protest, and, when Parlia- 
ment met on December 12, to indulge in the luxury of dull 
debates and bitter personalities, the situation remained un- 
changed, in spite of the growing sense of disaster abroad and 
incapacity at home.. The Duke of Newcastle in the Lords 
made a lame defence, and his monotonous and inconclusive 
speech lasted for the space of three hours. ' The House 
went to sleep after the first half hour,' was the cynical 
comment of an Opposition peer. As the year ended the 
indignation in the country against the Duke of Newcastle 
grew more and more pronounced, and he, in common with 
Lord Aberdeen, was thought in many quarters to be starving 
the war. The truth was, the Duke was not strong enough 
for the position, and if he had gone to the Colonial Office, 
when that alternative was offered him, his reputation would 
not now be associated with the lamentable blunders which, 
rightly or wrongly, are laid to his charge. It is said that he 
once boasted that he had often kept out of mischief men 
who, he frankly admitted, were his superiors in abihty. 
However that may be, the Duke of Newcastle ignominiously 
failed, at the great crisis in his public career, to keep out of 
mischief men who were his subordinates in position, and, 
in consequence, to arrest the fatal confusion which the 
winter campaign made on the miHtary resources of the 
nation. Lord Hardinge, who on the death of the Duke of 
Wellington had succeeded to the post of Commander-in- 



250 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Chief, assured Lord Malmesbury in January 1855 that the 
Duke of Newcastle had never consulted him on any subject 
connected with the war. He added, with considerable heat, 
that not a single despatch had been submitted to him ; in 
fact, he had been left to gather what the War Minister was 
doing through the pubhshed statements in the newspapers. 

The Duke of Newcastle was a sensible, well-intentioned 
man, but allowed himself to be involved in the manage- 
ment of the details of his office, instead of originating a 
policy and directing the broad course of affairs with vigour 
and determination. He displayed a degree of industry 
during the crisis which w^as praiseworthy in itself, and quite 
phenomenal in the most exalted branch of the Peerage, but 
he lacked the power of initiative, and had not sufficient 
force and decision of character to choose the right men for 
the emergency. 

The Cabinet might falter and the War Office dawdle, the 
faith of the soldiers in the authorities might be shaken and 
their hopes of personal succour be eclipsed, but the charity 
of womanhood failed not to respond to the call of the suffer- 
ing, or to the demands of self-sacrifice. Florence Night- 
ingale, and the nurses who laboured at her side in the 
hospital at Scutari not only soothed the dying and nursed 
the sick and wounded, but thrilled the heart of England by 
their modest heroism and patient devotion. 

Before Parliament met in December, Lord John Russell, 
in despair of bringing matters to a practical issue, informed 
his colleagues that, though he was w^illing to remain in the 
Cabinet, and to act as Leader of the House during the short 
session before Christmas, it was his intention to relinquish 
office at the close of the year. The objection w^as raised 
that it was unconstitutional for him to meet Parliament in 



LORD LANSDOWNE AS PEACEMAKER 25 1 

a responsible position if he had arrived at this fixed 
but unannounced resolution. He met this expression of 
opinion by requesting Lord Aberdeen to submit his resigna- 
tion to the Queen on December 7. The correspondence 
between Lord Lansdowne and Lord John, and the important 
memorandum which the latter drew up on December 30, 
which Mr. Walpole has printed, speak for themselves.^ It 
will be seen that Lord John once more insisted that the 
Secretary of State for the War Department ought immedi- 
ately to be invested with all the more important functions 
hitherto exercised by the Secretary at War, and he again laid 
stress on the necessity in such a crisis that the War Minister 
should be a member of the House of Commons. He com- 
plained that, though he was responsible in the Commons, 
Lord Aberdeen did not treat him with the confidence which 
alone could enable a Leader of the House to carry on 
the business of the Government with satisfaction. He 
declared that Lord Grey treated Lord Althorp in a different 
fashion, and that Lord Melbourne, to bring the matter 
nearer home, had shown greater consideration towards him- 
self. He added that he felt absolved from the duty of 
defending acts and appointments upon which he had not 
been consulted. 

Lord Lansdowne succeeded for the moment in patching 
up an unsatisfactory peace, but it was becoming every day 
more and more obvious that the Aberdeen Government 
was doomed. The memorandum which Lord John drew 
up, at the suggestion of Lord Lansdowne, describes in 
pithy and direct terms the privations of the soldiers, and 
the mortality amongst men and horses, which was directly 
due to hunger and neglect. He shows that between the 

' Life of Lord JoJut Russell, by Spencer Walpole, vol. ii. 232-235. 



252 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

end of September and the middle of November there was 
at least six weeks when all kinds of supplies might have 
been landed at Balaclava, and he points out that the 
stores only needed to be carried seven or eight miles 
to reach the most distant division of the Army. He 
protested that there had been great mismanagement, and 
added: 'Soldiers cannot fight unless they are well fed.' 
He stated that he understood Lord Raglan had written 
home at the beginning of October to say that, if the Army 
was to remain on the heights during the winter, huts would 
be required, since the barren position which they held did 
not furnish wood to make them. Nearly three months had, 
however, passed, and winter in its most terrible form had 
settled on the Crimea, and yet the huts still appeared not to 
have reached the troops, though the French had done their 
best to make good the discreditable breakdown of our com- 
missariat. ' There appears,' concludes Lord John, ' a want 
of concert among the different departments. When the 
Navy forward supplies, there is no military authority to 
receive them ; when the military wish to unload a ship, they 
find that the naval authority has already ordered it away. 
Lord Raglan and Sir Edmund Lyons should be asked to 
concert between them the mode of remedying this defect. 
Neither can see with his own eyes to the performance of 
all the subordinate duties, but they can choose the best men 
to do it, and arm them with sufficient authority. For on the 
due performance of these subordinate duties hangs the wel- 
fare of the Army. Lord Raglan should also be informed 
exactly of the amount of reinforcements ordered to the 
Crimea, and at what time he may expect them. Having 
furnished him with all the force in men and material which 
the Government can send him, the Government is entitled 



A FRANK STATEMENT 253 

to expect from him in return his opinion as to what can be 
done by the alhed armies to restore the strength and efficiency 
of the armies for the next campaign. Probably the troops 
first sent over will require four months' rest before they will 
be able to move against an enemy.' Procrastination was, 
however, to have its perfect work, and Lord John, chilled 
and indignant, told Lord Aberdeen on January 3 that nothing 
could be less satisfactory than the result of the recent 
Cabinets. ' Unless,' he added, ' you will direct measures, I 
see no hope for the efficient prosecution of the war ; ' for by 
this time it was perfectly useless, he saw, to urge on Lord 
Aberdeen the claims of Lord Palmerston. 



254 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



CHAPTER XII 

THE VIENNA DIFFICULTY 

1855 

Blunders at home and abroad — Roebuck s motion — ' General Fevrier 
turns traitor ' — France and the Crimea — Lord John at Vienna — The 
pride of the nation is touched — Napoleon's visit to Windsor — Lord 
John's retirement —The fall of Sebastopol — The Treaty of Paris. 

Parliament met on January 23, and the general indigna- 
tion at once found expression in Mr. Roebuck's motion — 
the notice of which was cheered by Radicals and Tories 
alike — to ' inquire into the condition of our Army before 
Sebastopol, and into the conduct of those Departments of 
the Government whose duty it has been to minister to the 
wants of that Army.' Lord John, in view of the blunders at 
home and abroad, did not see how such a motion was to 
be resisted, and at once tendered to Lord Aberdeen his 
resignation. His protests, pointed and energetic though 
they had been, had met with no practical response. Even 
the reasonable request that the War Minister should be in 
the Commons to defend his own department had passed un- 
heeded. Peelites, like Sir James Graham and Mr. Sidney 
Herbert, might make the best of a bad case, but Lord John 
felt that he could not honestly defend in Parliament a course 
of action which he had again and again attacked in the 
Cabinet. Doubtless it would have been better both for 



roebuck's motion 255 

himself and for his colleagues if he had adhered to his 
earlier intention of resigning ; and his dramatic retreat at 
this juncture unquestionably gave a handle to his adversaries. 
Though prompted by conscientious motives, sudden flight, 
in the face of what was, to all intents and purposes, a 
vote of censure, was a grave mistake. Not unnaturally, such 
a step was regarded as a bid for personal power at the 
expense of his colleagues. It certainly placed the Cabinet 
in a most embarrassing position, and it is easy to understand 
the irritation which it awakened. In fact, it led those who 
were determined to put the worst possible construction on 
Lord John's action to hint that he wished to rid himself 
of responsibility and to stand clear of his colleagues, so that 
when the nation grew tired of the war he might return to 
office and make peace. Nothing could well have been further 
from the truth. 

Lord John's retirement was certainly inopportune ; but it 
is almost needless to add — now that it is possible to review his 
whole career, as well as all the circumstances which marked 
this crisis in it — that he was not actuated by a self-seeking 
spirit. Looking back in after life. Lord John frankly admitted 
that he had committed an error in resigning office under Lord 
Aberdeen at the time and in the manner in which he did it. 
He qualified this confession, however, by declaring that he 
had committed a much greater error in agreeing to serve 
under Lord Aberdeen as Prime Minister : ' I had served 
under Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne before I became 
Prime Minister, and I served under Lord Palmerston after I 
had been Prime Minister. In no one of these cases did I 
find any difficulty in allying subordination with due counsel 
and co-operation. But, as it is proverbially said, " Where 
there is a will there is a way," so in political affairs the con- 



256 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

verse is true, " Where there is no will there is no way." ' He 
explained his position in a personal statement in the House 
of Commons on the night of Mr. Roebuck's motion. ' I 
had to consider whether I could fairly and honestly say, 
" It is true that evils have arisen. It is true that the brave 
men who fought at the Alma, at Inkerman, and at Balaclava 
are perishing, many of them from neglect ; it is true that 
the heart of the whole of England throbs with anxiety and 
sympathy on this subject ; but I can tell you that such 
arrangements have been made — that a man of such vigour 
and efficiency has taken the conduct of the War Department, 
with such a consolidation of offices as to enable him to have 
the entire control of the whole of the War Offices — so that 
any supply may be immediately furnished, and any abuse 
instantly remedied." I felt I could not honestly make such a 
declaration ; I therefore felt that I could come only to one 
conclusion, and that as I could not resist inquiry — by giving 
the only assurances which I thought sufficient to prevent it — 
my duty was not to remain any longer a member of the 
Government.' In the course of a powerful speech Lord 
John added that he would always look back with pride on 
his association with many measures of the Aberdeen 
Government, and more particularly with the great financial 
scheme which Mr. Gladstone brought forward in 1853. 

He refused to admit that the Whigs were an exclusive 
party, and he thought that such an idea was refuted by the fact 
that they had consented to serve in a CoaHtion Government. 
' I believe that opinion to have been unjust, and I think that 
the Whig party during the last two years have fully justified 
the opinion I entertained. - I will venture to say that no set 
of men ever behaved with greater honour or with more dis- 
interested patriotism than those who have supported the 



OPEN CONFESSION 257 

Government of the Earl of Aberdeen. It is my pride, and 
it will ever" be my pride to the last day of my life, to have 
belonged to a party which, as I consider, upholds the true 
principles of freedom ; and it will ever be my constant en- 
deavour to preserve the principles and to tread in the 
paths which the Whig party have laid down for the guidance 
of their conduct.' Lord John made no attempt to disguise 
the gravity of the crisis, and the following admission might 
almost be said to have sealed the fate of the Ministry : ' Sir, I 
must say that there is something, with all the official know- 
ledge to which I have had access, that to me is inexplicable 
in the state of our army. If I had been told, as a reason 
against the expedition to the Crimea last year, that your 
troops would be seven miles from the sea, and that — at that 
seven miles' distance — they would be in want of food, of 
clothing, and of shelter to such a degree that they would 
perish at the rate of from ninety to a hundred a day, I should 
have considered such a prediction as utterly preposterous, 
and such a picture of the expedition as entirely fanciful and 
absurd. We are all, however, forced to confess the notoriety 
of that melancholy state of things.' Three days later, after 
a protracted and heated debate, Mr. Roebuck's motion was 
carried in a House of 453 members by the sweeping majority 
of 157. ' The division was curious,' wrote Greville. ' Some 
seventy or eighty Whigs, ordinary supporters of Government, 
voted against them, and all the Tories except about six or 
seven.' There was no mistaking the mandate either of 
Parliament or of the people. Lord Aberdeen on the fol- 
lowing day went down to Windsor and laid his resignation 
before the Queen, and in this sorry fashion the Coalition 
Government ignominiously collapsed, with hardly an ex- 
pression of regret and scarcely a claim to remembrance. 

s " 



258 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

The Queen's choice fell upon Lord Derby, but his efforts 
to form an Administration proved unavailing. Lord Lans- 
downe was next summoned, and he suggested that Lord John 
Russell should be sent for, but in his case, also, sufficient 
promises of support were not forthcoming. In the end 
Her Majesty acquiesced in the strongly-expressed wish of 
the nation, and Lord Palmerston was called to power on 
February 5. For the moment Lord John was out of office, 
and Lord Panmure took the place of the Duke of Newcastle 
as War Minister, but all the other members of the defeated 
Administration, except, of course, Lord Aberdeen, entered 
the new Cabinet. Lord Palmerston knew the feeling of the 
country, and was not afraid to face it, and, therefore, de- 
termined to accept Mr. Roebuck's proposals for a searching 
investigation of the circumstances which had attended the 
conduct of the war. Loyalty to their late chief, as well as 
to their former colleague, the Duke of Newcastle, led Sir 
James Graham, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Gladstone, and 
other Peelites to resign. Lord John, urged by Lord 
Palmerston, became Colonial Secretary. Palmerston 
shared Lord Clarendon's view that no Government calling 
itself Liberal had a chance of standing without Lord John. 
Sir G. C. Lewis succeeded Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, and Sir Charles Wood took Sir James 
Graham's vacant place at the Admiralty. 

Changes of a more momentous character quickly fol- 
lowed. Early in the winter, when tidings of the sufferings 
of the Allies reached St. Petersburg, the Emperor Nicholas 
declared, with grim humour, that there were two generals 
who were about to fight for him, ' Janvier et Fevrier ; ' 
but the opening month of the year brought terrible priva- 
tions to the Russian reinforcements as they struggled 



'GENERAL F^VRIER TURNS TRAITOR ' 259 

painfully along the rough winter roads on the long march 
to the Crimea. The Czar lost a quarter of a million of 
men before the war ended, and a vast number of them fell 
before the cold or the pestilence. Omar Pasha defeated 
the Russian troops at Eupatoria in the middle of February. 
The fact that his troops had been repulsed by the hated 
Turks touched the pride of Nicholas to the quick, and is 
believed to have brought on the fatal illness which seized 
him a few days later. On February 27, just after the 
Emperor had left the parade-ground on which he had been 
reviewing his troops, he was struck down by paralysis, and, 
after lingering in a hopeless condition for a day or two, 
died a baffled and disappointed man. The irony of the 
situation was reflected with sombre and dramatic reahsm in 
a political cartoon which appeared in ' Punch.' It repre- 
sented a skeleton in armour, laying an icy hand, amid the 
falling snow, on the prostrate Czar's heart. The picture — - 
one of the most powerful that has ever appeared, even in 
this remarkable mirror of the times — was entitled, ' General 
Fevrier turned Traitor,'- and underneath was the dead Em- 
peror's cruel boast, ' Russia has two generals on whom she can 
confide — Generals Janvier and Fevrier.' Prior to the resig- 
nation of the Peelites the second Congress of Vienna 
assembled, and Lord John Russell attended it as a plenipo- 
tentiary for England ; and France, Austria, Turkey, and 
Russia were also represented. The ' four points ' which 
formed the basis of the negotiations were that Russia should 
abandon all control over Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia ; 
that the new Czar, Alexander IL, should surrender his 
claim to command the entrance of the Danube ; that 
all treaties should be annulled which gave Russia supre- 
macy in the Black Sea ; and that she should dismiss her 

s 2 



26o LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

pretensions to an exclusive right to protect in her own 
fashion the Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Nicholas, 
though at one time favourable to this scheme as a basis of 
peace, eventually fell back on the assertion that he 
would not consent to any limitation of his naval power in 
the Black Sea. Though the parleyings at Vienna after his 
death were protracted, the old difficulty asserted itself again, 
with the result that the second Congress proved, as spring 
gave way to summer, as futile as the first. 

Although subjects which vitally affected the Turkish 
Empire were under consideration, the Turkish Ambassador 
at Vienna had received anything but explicit directions, and 
Lord John was forced to the conclusion that the negotiations 
were not regarded as serious at Constantinople. Indeed, he 
had, in Mr. Spencer Walpole's words, ' reason to suspect that 
the absence of a properly credited Turk was not due to the 
dilatory character of the Porte alone but to the perverse 
action of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.' ^ Lord Clarendon 
did not hesitate to declare that Lord Stratford was inclined 
to thwart any business which was not carried on in Constan- 
tinople, and the English Ambassador kept neither Lord 
John in Vienna nor the Cabinet in Downing Street 
acquainted with the views of the Porte. Lord John 
declared that the Turkish representative at Vienna, from 
whom he expected information about the affairs of his 
own country, was ' by nature incompetent, and by instruc- 
tion silent.' Two schemes, in regard to the point which was 
chiefly in dispute, were before the Congress ; they are best 
stated in Lord John's own words : * One, called limitation, 
proposed that only four ships of the line should be main- 
tained in the Black Sea by Russia, and two each by the 
' Life of Lord John Russell, vol. ii. p. 251, 



COUNT BUOL'S COMPROMISE 26 1 

allies of Turkey. The other mode, proposed by M. Drouyn 
de LhuySj contemplated a much further reduction of force 
■ — namely, to eight or ten light vessels, intended solely to pro- 
tect commerce from pirates and perform the police of the 
coast.' Although a great part of the Russian fleet was 
at the bottom of the sea, and the rest of it hemmed in in 
the harbour of Sebastopol, Prince Gortschakoff announced, 
with the air of a man who was master of the situation, that 
the Czar entirely refused to limit his power in the Euxine. 

At this juncture Count Buol proposed a compromise, 
to the effect that Russia should maintain in the Black Sea 
a naval force not greater than that which she had had at 
her disposal there before the outbreak of the war ; that 
any attempt to evade this limitation should be interpreted 
as a casus belli^ by France, England, and Austria, 
which were to form a triple treaty of alliance to defend 
the integrity and independence of Turkey in case of 
aggression. Lord Palmerston believed, to borrow his own 
phrase, that Austria was playing a treacherous game, but 
that was not the opinion at the moment either of Lord 
John Russell or of M. Drouyn de Lhuys. They appear 
to have thought that the league of Austria with England 
and France to resist aggression upon Turkey would prove 
a sufficient check on Russian ambition, and did not lay stress 
enough on the objections, which at once suggested them- 
selves both in London and Paris. The Prince Consort put 
the case against Count Buol's scheme in a nutshell : ' The 
proposal of Austria to engage to make war when the Russian 
armaments should appear to have become excessive is ot 
no kind of value to the belligerents, who do not wish to 
establish a case for which to make war hereafter, but to 
obtain a security upon which they can conclude peace now.' 



262 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Lord John Russell, in a confidential interview with Count 
Buol, declared that he was prepared to recommend the 
English Cabinet to accept the Austrian proposals. It 
seemed to him that, if Russia was willing to accept the com- 
promise and to abandon the attitude which had led to the 
war, the presence of the Allies in the Crimea was scarcely 
justifiable. M. Drouyn de Lhuys took the same view, and 
both plenipotentiaries hastened back to urge acquiescence 
in proposals which seemed to promise the termination of a 
war in which, with httle result, blood and treasure had 
already been lavishly expended. 

Lord Palmerston and I^ord Clarendon, backed by 
popular sentiment, refused to see in Russia's stubborn 
demand about her fleet in the Black Sea other than a per- 
petual menace to Turkey. They argued that England had 
made too heavy a sacrifice to patch up in this fashion an 
inglorious and doubtful peace. The attitude of Napoleon 
in. did more than anything else to confirm this decision. 
The war in the Crimea had never been as popular in France 
as it was in England. The throne which Napoleon had 
seized could only be kept by military success, and there is 
no doubt whatever that personal ambition, and the prestige 
of a campaign, with England for a companion-in-arms, 
determined the despatch of French troops to the Crimea. 
On his return. Lord John at once saw the difficulty in which 
his colleagues were landed. The internal tranquility of 
France was imperilled if the siege of Sebastopol was aban- 
doned. ' The Emperor of the French,' he wrote, ' had been 
to us the most faithful ally who had ever wielded the sceptre 
or ruled the destinies of France. Was it possible for the 
English Government to leave the Emperor to fight unaided 
the battle of Europe, or to force him to join us in a peace 



.PRESSURE FROM PALMERSTON 263 

which would have sunk his reputation with his army and 
his people?' He added, that this consideration seemed 
to him so weighty that he ceased to urge on Lord Palmer- 
ston the acceptance of the Austrian terms, and Lord 
Clarendon therefore sent a reply in which Count Buol's 
proposals were rejected by the Cabinet. Lord Palmerston 
laid great stress on Lord John's presence in his ministry, 
and Mr. Walpole has shown that the latter only consented 
to withdraw his resignation after not merely an urgent, but 
a thrice-repeated personal request from the Premier. 

He ought unquestionably, at all hazards to Lord Palmer- 
ston's Government, to have refused to remain a member of 
it when his colleagues intimated that they were not in a 
position to accept his view of the situation without giving 
mortal offence to the Emperor of the French. Under the 
circumstances, Lord Palmerston ought not to have put the 
pressure on Lord John. The latter stayed in order to 
shield the Government from overthrow by a combined 
Radical and Tory attack at a moment when Palmerston 
was compelled to study the susceptibilities of France and 
Napoleon IIL's fears concerning his throne. There is a 
published letter, written by the Prince Consort at this junc- 
ture to his brother the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, which throws 
light on the situation. The Prince hints that the prospects 
of the Allies in the Crimea had become more hopeful, just 
as diplomatic affairs at Vienna had taken an awkward turn. 
He states that in General Pelissier the French ' have at 
last a leader who is determined and enterprising, and who 
will once more raise the spirit of the army, which has sunk 
through Canrobert's mildness.' He adds that the English 
troops ' are again thirty thousand men under arms, and their 
spirit is excellent. At home, however, Gladstone and the 



264 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Peelites are taking up the cry for peace, and declaring them- 
selves against all further continuation of the war ; whilst 
Lord Derby and the Protectionists are all for making 
common cause with Layard and others, in order to overthrow 
Palmerston's Ministry.' Disraeli, significantly adds the 
Prince, has been 'chiefly endeavouring to injure' Lord 
John Russell. 

Towards the end of May, Mr. Disraeli introduced a 
resolution condemning the conduct of the Government, 
and calhng attention to Lord John Russell's attitude at 
the Vienna Conference. Lord John had fulfilled the 
promise which he had given to Count Buol before leaving 
Vienna ; but Lord Palmerston was determined to main- 
tain the alliance with France, and therefore, as a member 
of his Government, Lord John's lips were sealed when he 
rose to defend himself. He stated in a powerful speech the 
reasons which had led to the failure of the Conference, and 
ended without any allusion to the Austrian proposals or 
his own action in regard to them. Irritated at the new turn 
of affairs. Count Buol disclosed what had passed behind the 
scenes in Vienna, and Lord John found himself compelled 
to explain his explanations. He declared that he had 
believed before leaving Vienna that the Austrian scheme 
held out the promise of peace, and, with this conviction in 
his mind, he had on his return to London immediately 
advised its acceptance by Lord Palmerston. He was not 
free, of course, to state with equal frankness the true reason 
of its rejection by the Cabinet, and therefore was com- 
pelled to fall back on the somewhat lame plea that it had 
been fully considered and disallowed by his colleagues. 
Moreover he felt, as a plenipotentiary, it was his duty to 
submit to the Government which had sent him to Vienna, 



AN EMBARRASSING POSITION 265 

and as a member of the Cabinet it was not less his duty 
to yield to the decision of the majority of his colleagues. 

Lord John's explanations were not deemed satisfactory. 
He was in the position of a man who could only defend 
himself and make his motives plain to Parliament and the 
country by statements which would have embarrassed his 
colleagues and have shattered the French alliance at a 
moment when, not so much on national as on international 
grounds, it seemed imperative that it should be sustained. 
The attacks in the Press were bitter and envenomed ; 
and when Lord John, in July, told Lord Palmerston it 
was his intention to retire, the latter admitted with an 
expression of great regret that the storm was too strong 
to be resisted, though, he added, 'juster feelings will in 
due time prevail.' A few days later Lord John, in a calm 
and impressive speech, anticipated Sir E. B. Lytton's 
hostile motion on the Vienna Conference by announcing 
his intention to the House. Though he still felt in 
honour obliged to say nothing on the real cause of his 
withdrawal, his dignified attitude on that occasion made 
its own impression, and all the more because of the 
sweeping abuse to which he was at the moment ex- 
posed. It was of this speech that Sir George Cornewall 
Lewis said that it was listened to with attention and respect 
by an audience partly hostile and partly prejudiced. He de- 
clared that he was convinced it would go far to remove the 
imputations, founded on error and misrepresentation, under 
which Lord John laboured. He added, with a generosity 
which, though characteristic, was rare at that juncture : 
' I shall be much surprised if, after a little time and a little re- 
flection, persons do not come to the conclusion that never was 
so small a matter magnified beyond its true porportions.' 



266 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Within twenty-four hours of his resignation Lord John 
had an opportunity of showing that he bore no mahce 
towards former colleagues. Mr. Roebuck, with character- 
istic denunciations, attacked the Government on the damag- 
ing statements contained in the report of the Sebastopol 
Committee. He proposed a motion censuring in severe 
terms every member of the Cabinet whose counsels had led 
to such disastrous results. Whatever construction might 
be placed on Lord John's conduct of affairs in Vienna, he 
at least could not be charged with, lukewarmness or apathy 
in regard to the administration of the army and the prose- 
cution of the war. He had, in fact, irritated Lord 
Aberdeen and the Duke of Newcastle by insisting again 
and again on the necessity of undivided control of the 
military departments, and on the need of a complete 
reorganisation of the commissariat. A less magnanimous 
man would have seized the opportunity of this renewed 
attack to declare that he, at least, had done his best at 
great personal cost to prevent the deplorable confusion and 
collapse which had overtaken the War Office. He dis- 
dained, however, the mean personal motive, and made, what 
Lord Granville called, a ' magnificent speech,' in which he 
declared that every member without exception remained 
responsible for the consequences which had overtaken the 
Expedition to the Crimea, Mr. Kinglake once asserted that, 
though Lord John Russell was capable of coming to a bold, 
abrupt, and hasty decision, not duly concerted with men 
whose opinions he ought to have weighed, no statesman in 
Europe surpassed him on the score of courage or high 
public spirit. The chivalry which he displayed in coming 
to the help of the Government on the morrow of his own 
almost compulsory retirement from office w^as typical of a 



WARLIKE COUNSELS PREVAIL 267 

man who made many mistakes, but was never guilty, even 
when wounded to the quick, of gratifying the passing resent- 
ments of the hour at the expense of the interests of the 
nation. 

During the summer of 1855 the feehng of the country 
grew more and more warhke. The failure of the negotia- 
tions at Vienna had touched the national pride. The State 
visit in the spring to the English Court of the Emperor 
Napoleon, and his determination not to withdraw his troops 
from the Crimea until some decisive victory was won, had 
rekindled its enthusiasm. The repulse at the Redan, 
the death of Lord Raglan, and the vainglorious boast of 
Prince Gortschakoff, who declared ' that the hour was at 
hand when the pride of the enemies of Russia would be 
lowered, and their armies swept from our soil like chaff 
blown away by the wind,' rendered all dreams of diplomatic 
solution impossible, and made England, in spite of the 
preachers of peace at any price, determined to push forward 
her quarrel to the bitter end. The nation, to borrow the 
phrase of one of the shrewdest political students of the time, 
had now begun to consider the war in the Crimea as a ' duel 
with Russia,' and pride and pluck were more than ever 
called into play, both at home and abroad, in its maintenance. 
The war, therefore, took its course. Ample supplies and 
reinforcements were despatched to the troops, and the Allies, 
under the command of General Simpson and General 
Pelissier, pushed forward the campaign with renewed vigour. 
Sardinia and Sweden had joined the alliance, and on August 
16 the troops of the former, acting in concert with the 
French, drove back the Russians, who had made a sortie 
along the valley of the Tchernaya. After a month's 
bombardment by the Allies, the Malakoff, a redoubt which 



268 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

commanded Sebastopol, was taken by the French ; but the 
EngHsh troops were twice repulsed in their attack on the 
Redan. Gortschakoff and Todleben were no longer able to 
withstand the fierce and daily renewed bombardment. The 
forts on the south side were, therefore, blown up, the ships 
were sunk, and the army which had gallantly defended the 
place retired to a position of greater security with the result 
that Sebastopol fell on September 8, and the war was virtually 
over. Sir Evelyn Wood lately drew attention to the fact 
that forty out of every hundred of the soldiers who served 
before Sebastopol in the depth of that terrible winter of 
1854 lie there, or in the Scutari cemetery — slain, not by the 
sword, but by privation, exposure, disease, and exertions 
beyond human endurance. 

France was clamouring for peace, and Napoleon was 
determined not to prolong the struggle now that his troops 
had come out of the siege of Sebastopol with flying colours. 
Russia, on her part, had wellnigh exhausted her resources. 
Up to the death of the Emperor Nicholas, she had lost 
nearly a quarter of a million of men, and six months later, 
so great was the carnage and so insidious the pestilence, 
that even that ominous number was doubled. The loss of 
the Allies in the Crimean war was upwards of eighty-seven 
thousand men, and more than two-thirds of the slain fell to 
France. Apart from bloodshed, anguish, and pain, the 
Crimean war bequeathed to England an increase of 
41,000,000/. in the National Debt. No wonder that over- 
tures for the cessation of hostilities now met with a 
welcome which had been denied at the Vienna Conference. 
After various negotiations, the Peace of Paris was signed 
on March 30, 1856. Russia was compelled to relinquish 
her control over the Danube and her protectorate over the 



ALL FOR NAUGHT 269 

Principalities, and was also forbidden to build arsenals on 
the shores of the Black Sea, which was declared open to all 
ships of commerce, but closed to all ships of war. Turkey, 
on the other hand, confirmed, on paper at least, the privi- 
leges proclaimed in 1839 to Christians resident in the 
Ottoman Empire ; but massacres at Damascus, in the 
Lebanon, and later in Bulgaria, and recently in Armenia, 
have followed in dismal sequence in spite of the Treaty of 
Paris. The neutrality of the Black Sea came to an end a 
quarter of a century ago, and the substantial gains — never 
great even at the outset — of a w^ar which was costly in blood 
and treasure have grown small by degrees until they have 
almost reached the vanishing point. 



2/0 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



CHAPTER XIII 

LITERATURE AND EDUCATION 

V 

Lord John's position in 1855 -His constituency in the City — Survey 
of his work in literature — As man of letters — His historical 
writings — Hero-worship of Fox — Friendship with INIoore —Writes 
the biography of the poet — 'Don Carlos' — A book wrongly at- 
tributed to him — Publishes his 'Recollections and Suggestions' — 
An opinion of Kinglake's — Lord John on his own career — Lord 
John and National Schools — Joseph Lancaster's tentative efforts — 
The formation of the Council of Education — Prejudice blocks the 
way — Mr. Forstcr's tribute. 

Men talked in the autumn of 1855 as if Lord John 
Russell's retirement was final, and even his brother, the 
Duke of Bedford, considered it probable that his career as 
a responsible statesman was closed. His health had always 
been more or less delicate, and he was now a man of sixty- 
three. He had been in Parliament for upwards of forty 
years, and nearly a quarter of a century had passed since 
he bore the brunt of the wrath and clamour and evil- 
speaking of the Tories at the epoch of Reform. He had 
been leader of his party for a long term of difficult years, 
and Prime Minister for the space of six, and in that 
capacity had left on the statute book an impressive record 
of his zeal on behalf of civil and religious liberty. No 
statesman of the period had won more distinction m spite 
of * gross blunders,' which he himself in so many words 



OUT OF OFFICE . 2J\ 

admitted. He was certainly entitled to rest on his laurels ; 
but it was nonsense for anyone to suppose that the ani- 
mosity of the Irish, or the indignation of the Ritualists^ or 
the general chagrin at the collapse — under circumstances 
for which Lord John was by no means alone responsible — of 
the Vienna Conference, could condemn a man of so much 
energy and courage, as well as political prescience, to per- 
petual banishment from Downing Street. 

There were people who thought that Lord John was played 
out in 1855, and there were many more who wished to think 
so, for he was feared by the incompetent and apathetic of his 
own party, as well as by those who had occasion to reckon with 
him in honourable but strenuous pohtical conflict. The great 
mistake of his life was not the Durham Letter, which has 
been justified, in spite of its needless bitterness of tone, by 
the inexorable logic of accomplished events. It was not 
his attitude towards Ireland in the dark years of famine, 
which was in reality far more temperate and generous than 
is commonly supposed. It was not his action over the 
Vienna Conference, for, now that the facts are known, his 
reticence in self-defence, under the railing accusations which 
were brought against him, was magnanimous and patriotic. 
The truth is. Lord John Russell placed himself in a false 
position when he yielded to the importunity of the Court 
and the Peelites by consenting to accept office under Lord 
Aberdeen. The Crimean War, which he did his best to 
prevent, only threw into the rehef of red letters against a 
dark sky the radical divergence of opinion which existed in 
the Coalition Government. 

For nearly four years after his retirement from office- 
Lord John held an independent political position, and 
there is evidence enough that he enjoyed to the full 



2/2 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

this respite from the cares of responsibihty. He gave up 
his house in town, and the quidnuncs thought that they 
had seen the last of him as a Minister of the Crown, whilst 
the merchants and the stockbrokers of the City were sup- 
posed to scout his name, and to be ready to lift up their 
heel against him at the next election. 

Meanwhile, Lord John studied to be quiet, and succeeded. 
He visited country-houses, and proved a delightful as well as 
a delighted guest. He travelled abroad, and came back 
with new political ideas about the trend in foreign politics. 
He pubhshed the final volume of his ' Memoirs and Corre- 
spondence of Thomas Moore,' and busied himself over his 
' Life and Times of Charles James Fox,' and other con- 
genial literary tasks. He appeared on the platform and 
addressed four thousand persons in Exeter Hall, in con- 
nection with the Young Men's Christian Association, on the 
causes which had retarded moral and political progress in 
the nation. He went down to Stroud, and gave his old 
constituents a philosophic address on the study of history. 
He spoke at the first meeting of the Social Science Con- 
gress at Birmingham, presided over the second at Liver- 
pool, and raised in Parliament the questions of National 
Education, Jewish DisabiHties, the affairs of Italy, besides 
taking part, as an independent, supporter of Lord Palmers- 
ton, in the controversies which arose from time to time in the 
House of Commons. His return to office grew inevitable 
in the light of the force of his character and the integrity 
of his aims. 

It is, of course, impossible in the scope of this volume to 
describe at any length Lord John Russell's contributions 
to literature, even outside the range of letters and articles 
in the press and that almost forgotten weapon of con- 



LITERARY WORK 2/3 

troversy, the political pamphlet. From youth to age Lord 
John not merely possessed the pen of a ready writer, but 
employed it freely in history, biography, criticism, belles- 
lettres^ and verse. His first book was published when 
George III. was King, and his last appeared when almost 
forty years of Queen Victoria's reign had elapsed. The 
Liverpool Administration was in power when his biography 
of his famous ancestor, William, Lord Russell, appeared, and 
that of Mr. Disraeli when the veteran statesman took the 
world into his confidence with ' Recollections and Sugges- 
tions.' It is amusing now to recall the fact that two years 
after the battle of Waterloo Lord John Russell feared that 
he could never stand the strain of a political career, and 
Tom Moore's well-known poetical ' Remonstrance ' was 
called forth by the young Whig's intention at that time to 
abandon the Senate for the study. When Lord Grey's 
Ministry was formed in 1830 to carry Reform, Lord John 
was the author of several books, grave and gay, and had 
been seventeen years in Parliament, winning already a con- 
siderable reputation within and without its walls. It was a 
surprise at the moment, and it is not even yet quite clear 
why Russell was excluded from the Cabinet. Mr. Disraeli 
has left on record his interpretation of the mystery : * Lord 
John Russell was a man of letters, and it is a common 
opinion that a man cannot at the same time be successful 
both in meditation and in action.' If this surmise is correct, 
Lord John's fondness for printer's ink kept him out of 
Downing Street until he made by force his merit known 
as a champion of popular rights in the House of Commons. 
Literature often claimed his pen, for, besides many con- 
tributions in prose and verse to periodicals, to say 
nothing of writings which still remain in manuscript and 

T 



274 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

prefaces to the books of other people, he pubhshed about 
twenty works, great and small. Yet, his strength lay else- 
where. 

His literary pursuits, with scarcely an exception, represent 
his hours of relaxation and the manner in which he sought 
relief from the cares of State. In the pages of ' William, 
Lord Russell,' which was published in 1819, when political 
corruption was supreme and social progress all but impos- 
sible, Lord John gave forth no uncertain sound. 'In these 
times, when love of liberty is too generally supposed to be 
allied with rash innovation, impiety, and anarchy, it seems to 
me desirable to exhibit to the world at full length the 
portrait of a man who, heir to wealth and title, was foremost 
in defending the privileges of the people ; who, when busily 
occupied in the affairs of public life, was revered in his own 
family as the best of husbands and of fathers ; who joined 
the truest sense of religion with the unqualified assertion of 
freedom ; who, after an honest perseverance in a good 
cause, at length attested, on the scaffold, his attachment to 
the ancient principles of the Constitution and the inalienable 
right of resistance.' The interest of the book consists not 
merely in its account — gathered in part at least from family 
papers at Woburn and original letters at Longleat — of Lord 
Russell, but also in the light which is cast on the period of 
the Restoration, and the policy of Charles II. and the Duke 
of York. 

Two years later, Lord John published an ' Essay on the 
History of the English Government and Constitution,' 
which, in an expanded form, has passed through several 
editions, and has also appeared in a French version. The 
book is concerned with constitutional change in England 
from the reign of Henry VII. to the beginning of the nine- 



A CONFIDENT WHIG 275 

teenth century. Lord John made no secret of his con- 
viction that, whilst the majority of the Powers of Europe 
needed revolutionary methods to bring them into sympathy 
with the aspirations of the people, the Government of 
England was not in such an evil case, since its 'abuses 
easily admit of reforms consistent with its spirit, capable of 
being effected without injury or danger, and mainly contri- 
buting to its preservation.' The historical reflections which 
abound in the work, though shrewd, can scarcely be described 
as remarkable, much less as profound. The ' Essay on 
English Government ' is, in fact, not the confessions of an 
inquiring spirit entangled in the maze of political speculation, 
but the conclusions of a young statesman who has made 
up his mind, with the help of Somers and Fox. 

Perhaps, however, the most important of Lord John's 
contributions to the study of the philosophy of history was 
' Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht.' 
It describes at considerable length, and often with luminous 
insight, the negotiations which led to the treaty by which 
the great War of the Spanish Succession was brought to an 
end. It also throws light on men and manners during 
the last days of Louis XIV., and on the condition of affairs 
in France which followed his death. The closing pages of 
the second volume are concerned with a survey of the 
religious state of England during the first half of the eigh- 
teenth century. Lord John in this connection pays homage 
to the work of Churchmen of the stamp of Warburton, 
Clarke, and Hoadly ; but he entirely fails to appreciate at 
anything like their true value the labours of Whitfield and 
Wesley, though doing more justice to the great leaders of 
Puritanism, a circumstance which was perhaps due to the 
fact that they stand in the direct historical succession, not 

T 2 



2/6 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

merely in the assertion of the rights of conscience, but in the 
ordered growth of freedom and society. 

Amongst the most noteworthy of Lord John Russell's 
literary achievements were the two works which he pub- 
lished concerning a statesman whose memory, he declared, 
ought to be ' consecrated in the heart of every lover of 
freedom throughout the globe' — Charles James Fox, a 
master of assemblies, and, according to Burke, perhaps the 
greatest debater whom the world has ever seen. The 
books in question are entitled * Memorials and Correspon- 
dence,' which was published in four volumes at intervals 
between the years 1853 and 1857, and the more important 
' Life and Times of Charles James Fox,' which appeared 
in three volumes between the years 1859 and 1866. This 
task, like so many others which Lord John accomplished, 
came unsought at the death of his old friend. Lady Holland, 
in 1845. J^t was the ambition of Lord Holland, 'nephew 
of Fox and friend of Grey,' as he used proudly to style 
himself, to edit the papers and write the life of his brilliant 
kinsman. Politics and society and the stately house at 
Kensington, which, from the end of last century until the 
opening years of the Queen's reign, was the chief salon 
of the Whig party, combined, with an easy procrastinating 
temperament, to block the way, until death ended, in the 
autumn of 1840, the career of the gracious master of 
Holland House. The materials which Lord Holland and 
his physician, librarian, and friend. Dr. John Allen, had 
accumulated, and which, by the way, passed under the 
scrutiny of Lord Grey and Rogers, the poet, were 
edited by Lord John, with the result that he grew fasci- 
nated with the subject, and formed the resolution, in 
consequence, to write ' The Life and Times ' of the great 



FOX AND MOORE 277 

Whig statesman. He declared that it was well to have a 
hero, and a hero with a good many faults and failings. 

Fox did more than any other statesman in the dull reign 
of George II. to prepare the way for the epoch of Reform, 
and it was therefore fitting that the statesman who more 
than any other bore the brunt of the battle in 1830-32 
should write his biography. Lord Russell's biography of 
Fox, though by no means so skilfully written as Sir George 
Otto Trevelyan's vivacious description of ' The Early History 
of Charles James Fox,' is on a more extended scale than the 
latter. Students of the political annals of the eighteenth 
century are aware of its value as an original and suggestive 
contribution to the facts and forces which have shaped the 
relations of the Crown and the Cabinet in modern history. 
Fox, in Lord John's opinion, gave his life to the defence of 
English freedom, and hastened his death by his exertion to 
abolish the African Slave Trade. He lays stress, not only 
on the great qualities which Fox displayed in public life, 
but also on the simplicity and kindness of his nature, and 
the spell which, in spite of grievous faults, he seemed able 
to cast, without effort, alike over friends and foes. 

One of the earliest, and certainly one of the closest, 
friendships of Lord John Russell's life was with Thomas 
Moore. They saw much of each other for the space 
of nearly forty years in London society, and were also 
drawn together in the more familiar intercourse of foreign 
travel. It was with Lord John that the poet went to 
Italy in 18 19 to avoid arrest for debt, after his deputy at 
Bermuda had embezzled 6,000/. Moore lived, more or 
less, all his days from hand to mouth, and Lord John Russell, 
who was always ready in a quiet fashion, in Kingsley's 
phrase, to help lame dogs over stiles, frequently displayed 



2/8 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

towards the light-hearted poet throughout their long friend- 
ship delicate and generous kindness. He it was who, in 
conjunction with Lord Lansdowne, obtained for Moore 
in 1835 ^ pension of 300/. a year, and announced the 
fact as one which was * due from any Government, but 
much more from one some of the members of which 
are proud to think themselves your friends.' Moore died 
in 1852, and when his will was read — it had been made 
when Lord John was still comparatively unknown — it 
was discovered that he had, to give his own words, * con- 
fided to my valued friend, Lord John Russell (having 
obtained his kind promise to undertake the service for 
me), the task of looking over whatever papers, letters, or 
journals I may leave behind me, for the purpose of forming 
from tlicm some kind of publication, whether in the shape 
of memoirs or otherwise, which may afford the means of 
making some provision for my wife and family.' Although 
Lord John was sixty, and burdened with the cares of State, 
if not with the cares of office, he cheerfully accepted the 
task. Though it must be admitted that he performed 
some parts of it in rather a perfunctory manner, the eight 
volumes which appeared between 1853 and 1856 of the 
' Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore ' 
represent a severe tax upon friendship, as well as no ordinary 
labour on the part of a man who was always more or less 
immersed in public affairs. 

Lord John also edited the ' Correspondence of John, 
fourth Duke of Bedford,' and prefaced the letters with a 
biographical sketch. Quite early in his career he also 
tried his hand at fiction in 'The Nun of Arrouca,' a story 
founded on a romantic incident which occurred during hi^ 
travels in the Peninsula. The book appeared in 1822, 



' DON CARLOS ' 279 

and in the same year— he was restless and ambitious of 
Hterary distinction at the time, and had not yet found his 
true sphere in politics — he also published ' Don Carlos,' a 
tragedy in blank verse, which was in reality not merely a 
tirade against the cruelties of the Inquisition, but an 
impassioned protest against religious disabihties in every 
shape or form. ' Don Carlos,' though now practically for- 
gotten, ran through five editions in twelve months, and the 
people remembered it when its author became the foremost 
advocate in the House of Commons of the repeal of the 
Test and Corporation Acts. Amongst other minor writings 
which belong to the earlier years of Lord John Russell, it is 
enough to name ' Essays and Sketches of Life and Character,' 
' The Establishment of the Turks in Europe,' ' A Translation 
of the Fifth Book of the Odyssey,' and an imitation of the 
Thirteenth Satire of Juvenal, as well as an essay on the 
'Causes of the French Revolution,' which appeared in 1832. 
It is still a moot point whether ' Letters Written for the 
Post, and not for the Press,' an anonymous volume which 
appeared in 1820, and which consists of descriptions of a tour 
in Scotland, interspersed with dull moral lectures on the con- 
duct of a wife towards her husband, was from his pen. Mr. 
George Elliot believes, on internal evidence, too lengthy 
to quote, that the book— a small octavo volume of more 
than four hundred pages— is erroneously attributed to his 
brother-in-law, and the Countess Russell is of the same 
opinion. Mr. Elliot cites inaccuracies in the book, and 
adds that the places visited in Scotland do not correspond 
with those which Lord John had seen when he went thither 
in company with the Duke and Duchess in 1807 ; and 
there is no evidence that he made another pilgrimage north 
of the Tweed between that date and the appearance of the 



28o LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

book. He adds that his father took the trouble to collect 
everything which was written by Lord John, and the book 
is certainly not in the library at Minto. Moreover, Mr. 
Elliot is confident that either Lord Minto or Lord John 
himself assured him that he might dismiss the idea of the 
supposed authorship. 

After his final retirement from office. Lord John pub- 
lished, in 1868, three letters to Mr. Chichester Fortescue 
on ' The State of Ireland,' and this was followed by a 
contribution to ecclesiastical history in the shape of a 
volume of essays on ' The Rise and Progress of the 
Christian Religion in the West of Europe to the Council of 
Trent.' The leisure of his closing years was, however, 
chiefly devoted to the preparation, with valuable introduc- 
tions, of selections from his own ' Speeches and Despatches ; ' 
and this, in turn, was followed, after an interval of five 
years, by a work entitled ' Recollections and Suggestions, 
181 3-1 873,' which appeared as late as 1875, and which was 
of singular personal interest as well as of historical impor- 
tance. It bears on the title-page two lines from Dryden, 
which were often on Lord John's lips in his closing years : 

Not Heaven itself upon the past has power, 

But what has been has been, and I have had my hour. 

The old statesman's once tenacious memory was failing 
when he wrote the book, and there is little evidence of 
literary arrangement in its contents. If, however, Lord 
John did not always escape inaccuracy of statement or 
laboured discursiveness of style, the value not only of his 
political reminiscences, but also of his shrewd and often 
pithily expressed verdicts on men and movements, is un- 
questionable, and, on the whole, the vigour of the book is 



A RETROSPECT 28 1 

as remarkable as its noble candour. Mr. Kinglake once 
declared that ' Lord John Russell wrote so naturally that it 
recalled the very sound of his voice ; ' and half the charm of 
his * Recollections and Suggestions ' consists in the artless- 
ness of a record which will always rank with the original 
materials of history, between the year in which Wellington 
fought the battle of Vittoria and that in which, just sixty 
years later, Napoleon III. died in exile at Chislehurst. In 
speaking of his own career. Lord Russell, writing at the age 
of eighty-one, uses words which are not less manly than 
modest : 

' I can only rejoice that I have been allowed to have 
my share in the task accomplished in the half-century 
which has elapsed from 1819 to 1869. My capacity, I 
always felt, was very inferior to that of the men who have 
attained in past times the foremost place in our Parliament 
and in the councils of our Sovereign. I have committed 
many errors, some of them very gross blunders. But the 
generous people of England are always forbearing and 
forgiving to those statesmen who have the good of their 
country at heart. Like my betters, I have been misrepre- 
sented and slandered by those who know nothing of me ; 
but I have been more than compensated by the confidence 
and the friendship of the best men of my own political 
connection, and by the regard and favourable interpretation 
of my motives, which I have heard expressed by my generous 
opponents, from the days of Lord Castlereagh to these of 
Mr. Disraeli.' 

There were few questions in which Lord John Russell 
was more keenly interested from youth to age than that of 
National Education. As a boy he had met Joseph Lan- 
caster, during a visit of that far-seeing and practical friend 



282 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

of poor children to Woburn, and the impression which the 
humble Quaker philanthropist made on the Duke of Bed- 
ford's quick-witted as well as kind-hearted son was retained, 
as one of his latest speeches show, to the close of life. At 
the opening of the new British Schools in Richmond in the 
summer of 1867, Lord John referred to his father's associa- 
tion with Joseph Lancaster, and added : ' In this way I 
naturally became initiated into a desire for promoting 
schools for the working classes, and I must say, from that 
time to this I never changed my mind upon the subject. 
I think it is absolutely necessary our schools should not 
merely be secular, but that they should be provided with 
religious teaching, and that religious teaching ought not to 
be sectarian. There will be plenty of time, when these 
children go to church or chapel, that they should learn 
either that particular form of doctrine their parents follow 
or adopt one more consistent with their conscientious 
feehngs ; but I think, while they are young boys and girls 
at school, it ought to be sufficient for them to know what 
Christ taught, and what the apostles taught ; and from 
those lessons and precepts they may guide their conduct in 
life.' 

Lord John put his hand to the plough in the day of 
small things, and, through good and through evil report, 
from the days of Lancaster, Bell, and Brougham, to those 
of Mr. Forster and the great measure of 1870, he never 
withdrew from a task which lay always near to his heart. 
It is difficult to believe that at the beginning of the present 
century there were less than three thousand four hundred 
schools of all descriptions in the whole of England, or that 
when the reign of George III. was closing one-half of the 
children of the nation still ran wild without the least pre- 



THE AWAKENING OF THE PEOPLE 283 

tence of education. At a still later period the marriage 
statistics revealed the fact that one-third of the men and 
one-half of the women were unable to sign the register. 
The social elevation of the people, so ran the miserable plea 
of those who assuredly were not given to change, was 
fraught with peril to the State. Hodge, it was urged, ought 
to be content to take both the Law and the Commandments 
from his betters, since a little knowledge is a dangerous 
thing. As for the noisy, insolent operatives and artisans 
of the great manufacturing towns, was there not for them 
the strong hand of authority, and, if they grew too obstrepe- 
rous, the uplifted sabre of the military as at Peterloo ? It 
was all very well, however, to extol the virtues of patience, 
contentment, and obedience, but the sense of wrong and of 
defiance rankled in the masses, and with it — in a dull and 
confused manner— the sense of power. 

The Reform Bill of 1832 mocked in many directions 
the hopes of the people, but it at least marked a great 
social as well as a great political departure, and with it 
came the dawn of ^ new day to modern England. As 
the light broadened, the vision of poets and patriots began 
to be realised in practical improvements, which came 
home to men's business and bosom ; the standard of 
intelligence rose, and with it freedom of thought, and 
the, sometimes passionate, but more often long-suffering 
demand for political, social, and economic concessions 
to justice. It was long before the privileged classes began 
to recognise, except in platform heroics, that it was high 
time to awake out of sleep and to ' educate our masters ; ' 
but the work began when Lord Althorp persuaded the 
House of Commons to vote a modest sum for the erection of 
school buildings in England ; and that grant of 20,000/. in 



284 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

1832 was the ' handful of corn on the top of the mountains ' 
which has brought about the golden harvest of to-day. The 
history of the movement does not, of course, fall within the 
province of these pages, though Lord John Russell's name 
is associated with it in an honourable and emphatic sense. 
The formation, chiefly at his instance, in 1839 of a Council 
of Education paved the way for the existing system of 
elementary education, and lifted the whole problem to the 
front rank of national affairs. 

He was the first Prime Minister of England to carry a 
measure which made it possible to secure trained teachers 
for elementary schools ; and his successful effort in 1847 to 
' diminish the empire of ignorance,' as he styled it, was one of 
the events in his public life on which he looked back in after 
years with the most satisfaction. During the session of 1856 
Lord John brought forward in the House of Commons a bold 
scheme of National Education. He contended that out of 
four million children of school age only one-half were receiving 
instruction, whilst not more than one-eighth were attending 
schools which were subject to inspection. The vast majority 
were to be found in schools where the standard of education, 
if not altogether an unknown quantity, was deplorably low. 
He proposed that the number of inspectors should be in- 
creased, and that a rate should be levied by the local autho- 
rities for supplying adequate instruction in places where it was 
unsatisfactory. He contended that the country should be 
mapped out in school districts, and that the managers should 
have the power to make provision for religious instruction, 
and, at the same time, should allow the parents of the children 
a voice in the matter. Prejudices ecclesiastical and social 
blocked the way, however, and Lord John was compelled 
to abandon the scheme, which suggested, and to a large 



POPULAR EDUCATION 285 

extent anticipated Mr. Forster's far-reaching measure, which 
in 1870 met with a better fate, and Hnked the prin- 
ciples of local authority and central supervision in the 
harmonious working of public education. When the victory 
was almost won Mr. Forster, with characteristic kindliness, 
wrote to the old statesman who had laboured for the people's 
cause in years of supreme discouragement : — 'As regards 
universal compulsory education, I believe we shall soon 
complete the building. It is hard to see how there would 
have been a building to complete, if you had not, with great 
labour and in great difficulty, dug the foundations in 1839.' 
Happily Lord John lived to witness the crowning of the 
edifice by the Gladstone Administration. 



2 86 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



CHAPTER XIV 

COMING BACK TO POWER 
1857-1861 

Lord John as an Independent Member — His chance in the City — The 
Indian Mutiny — Orsini's attempt on the life of Napoleon —The 
Conspiracy Bill — Lord John and the Jewish Relief Act — Palmerston 
in power — Lord John at the Foreign Office — Cobden and Bright — 
Quits the Commons with a Peerage. • • 

Lord John came prominently to the front in public 
affairs in the brief session of 1857, which ended in Lord 
Palmerston's appeal to the country. He spoke against the 
Government during the discussions in the House of 
Commons on the conduct of the Persian War, and he 
exercised his independence in other directions. Even 
shrewd and well-informed observers were curiously oblivious, 
for the moment, of the signs of the times, for Greville wrote 
on February 27 : ' Nobody cares any longer for John Russell, 
everybody detests Gladstone ; Disraeli has no influence in 
the country, and a very doubtful position with his own 
party.' Yet scarcely more than a fortnight later this cynical, 
but frank scribe added : ' Some think a reaction in favour of 
John Russell has begun. He stands for the City, and is in 
very good spirits, though his chances of success do not look 
bright ; but he is a gallant little fellow, likes to face danger, 
and comes out well in times of difficulty.' Between these 
two statements the unexpected had happened. Cobden 



THE CITY FIGHTS SHY 28/ 

had brought forward a motion censuring the conduct of 
the Government in the affair of the lorcha, 'Arrow,' at 
Canton, and the three statesmen on whom Greville had 
contemptuously pronounced judgment — Russell, Gladstone, 
and Disraeli — had supported the Manchester school, with 
the result that the Government, on March 4, suffered defeat 
by a majority of sixteen votes. Parliament was dissolved in 
the course of the month, and the General Election brought 
Lord Palmerston back to power, pledged to nothing unless 
it was a spirited foreign policy. 

The personal ascendency of Lord Palmerston, whom 
Disraeli cleverly styled the Tory chief of a Radical Cabinet, 
carried the election, for there was a good deal of truth in 
the assertion that nobody cared a straw for his colleagues. 
The Peace party suffered defeat at the polls, and, amongst 
others, Cobden himself was turned out at Huddersfield, 
and Bright and Milner Gibson were his companions in 
misfortune at Manchester. A vigorous attempt was made 
to overthrow Lord John in the City, and his timid friends 
in the neighbourhood of Lombard Street and the Exchange 
implored him not to run the risk of a contested election. 
He was assured in so many words, states Lady Russell, 
that he had as much chance of being elected Pope as of 
being elected member for the City ; and the statement 
roused his mettle. He was pitted against a candidate from 
Northampton, and the latter was brought forward with 
the powerful support of the Registration Association of 
the City of London, and in a fashion which was the reverse 
of complimentary to the old statesman. 

Lord John was equal to the occasion, and was by no 
means inclined to throw up the sponge. He went down to 
the City, and delivered not merely a vigorous, but vivacious 



288 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

speech, and in the course of it he said, with a jocularity 
which was worthy of Lord Palmerston himself : ' If a 
gentleman were disposed to part with his butler, his 
coachman, or his gamekeeper, or if a merchant were 
disposed to part with an old servant, a warehouseman, a 
clerk, or even a porter, he would say to him, "John — 
(laughter) — I think your faculties are somewhat decayed ; 
you are growing old, you have made several mistakes, and I 
think of putting a young man from Northampton in your 
place." (Laughter and cheers.) I think a gentleman would 
behave in that way to his servant, and thereby give John an 
opportunity of answering that he thought his faculties were 
not so much decayed, and that he was able to go on, at all 
events, some five or six years longer. That opportunity was 
not given to me. The question was decided in my 
absence, without any intimation to me ; and I come now to 
ask you and the citizens of London to reverse that decision.' 
He was taken at his word, and the rival candidate from 
Northampton was duly sent to the neighbouring borough of 
Coventry. 

The summer of 1857 was darkened in England by 
tidings of the Indian Mutiny and of the terrible massacre 
at Cawnpore. In face of the disaster Lord John not 
merely gave his hearty support to the Government, but 
delivered an energetic protest against the attack of the 
Opposition at such a crisis, and moved an address assuring 
the Crown of the support of Parliament, which was carried, 
in spite of Disraeli, without a division. At the same time 
Lord John in confidential intercourse made it plain that he 
recognised to the full extent the need of reform in the ad- 
ministration of India, and he did not hesitate to intimate 
that, in his view, the East India Company was no longer 



THE ORSINI PLOT 289 

equal to the strain of so great a responsibility. He brought 
no railing accusations against the Company, but, on the 
contrary, declared that it must be admitted they had ' con- 
ducted their affairs in a wonderful manner, falling into errors 
that were natural, but displaying merits of a high order. 
The real ground for change is that the machine is worn 
out, and, as a manufacturer changes an excellent engine of 
Watt and Boulton made fifty years ago for a new engine 
with modern improvements, so it becomes us to find a new 
machine for the government of India.' 

Before the upheaval in India had spent its force fresh 
difficulties overtook Lord Palmerston's (iovernment. Count 
Orsini, strong in the conviction that Napoleon III. was the 
great barrier to the progress of revolution in Italy, determined 
to rid his countrymen of the man who, beyond all others, 
seemed bent on thwarting the national aspirations. With other 
conspirators, he threw three bombs on the night of January 
14, 1858, at the carriage of the Emperor and Empress as they 
were proceeding to the Opera, and, though they escaped un- 
hurt, ten persons were killed and many wounded. The bombs 
had been manufactured in England, and Orsini — who was 
captured and executed — had arranged the dastardly outrage 
in London, and the consequence was a fierce outbreak of 
indignation on the other side of the Channel. Lord 
Palmerston, prompted by the French Government, which 
demanded protection from the machinations of political 
refugees, brought forward a Conspiracy Bill. The feeling 
of the country, already hostile to such a measure, grew pro- 
nounced when the French army, not content with congratu- 
lating the Emperor on his escape, proceeded to refer to 
England in insulting, and even threatening, terms. Lord 
John, on high constitutional grounds, protested against the 



290 LORD JOHN RUSSELL ' 

introduction of the measure, and declared that he was 
determined not to share in such 'shame and humihation.' 
The Government were defeated on the Conspiracy Bill, on 
February 19, by nineteen votes. Amongst the eighty-four 
Liberals in the majority occur the names, not merely of 
Lord John Russell and Sir James Graham, but Mr. Card- 
well and Mr. Gladstone. Lord Palmerston promptly re- 
signed, and Lord Derby came into office. Disraeli, as 
Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of 
Commons, proceeded with characteristic audacity and a 
light heart to educate the new Conservative Party in the art 
of dishing the Whigs. 

The new Ministry was short-lived. Lord Derby was in 
advance of his party, and old-fashioned Tories listened with 
alarm to the programme of work which he set before them. 
For the moment Lord John was not eager for office, 
and he declared that the ' new Ministers ought not to be 
recklessly or prematurely opposed.' He added that he 
would not sanction any cabal among the Liberal party, and 
that he had no intention whatever of leading an alliance of 
Radicals and Peelites. Impressed with the magnitude of 
the issues at stake, he helped Lord Derby to pass the new 
India Bill, which handed the government of that country 
over to the Crown. He held that the question was too great 
to be made a battle-field of party, but thorough-paced 
adherents of Lord Palmerston did not conceal their indigna- 
tion at such independent action. Lord John believed at the 
moment that it was right for him to throw his influence into 
the scale, and therefore he was indifferent to the passing 
clamour. The subsequent history of the English in India 
has amply justified the patriotic step which he took in scorn 
of party consequences. The Jewish Relief Act became law 



THE JEWISH RELIEF ACT 29 1 

in 1858, and Lord John at length witnessed the triumph of 
a cause which he had brought again and again before 
ParHament since the General Election of 1847, when Baron 
Rothschild was returned as his colleague in the represen- 
tation of the City. Scarcely any class of the community 
showed themselves more constantly mindful of his services 
on their behalf than the Jews. When one of them took an 
opportunity of thanking him for helping to free a once 
oppressed race from legal disabilities, Lord John replied : 
' The object of my life has been not to benefit a race alone, 
but all nationalities that suffered under civil and religious 
disabilities.' He used to relate with evident appreciation the 
reply which Lord Lyndhurst once gave to a timid statesman 
who feared a possible Hebrew invasion of the woolsack. The 
man who was appointed four times to that exalted seat re- 
torted : ' Well, I see no harm in that; Daniel would have made 
a good Lord Chancellor.' 

Everyone recognised that the Derby Administration 
was a mere stop-gap, and, as months passed on, its 
struggle for existence became somewhat ludicrous. They 
felt themselves to be a Ministry on sufferance, and, accord- 
ing to the gossip of the hour, their watchword was ' Any- 
thing for a quiet life.' There were rocks ahead, and at 
the beginning of the session of 1859 they stood revealed in 
Mr. Disraeli's extraordinary proposals for Reform, and in 
the war-cloud which was gathering rapidly over Europe in 
consequence of the quarrel between France and Austria about 
the affairs of Italy. Mr. DisraeH's Reform Bill taxed the 
allegiance of his party to the breaking point, and when its 
provisions were disclosed two of his colleagues resigned — 
Mr. Spencer Walpole the Home Office, and Mr. Henley the 
Board of Trade, rather than have part or lot in such a 

u 2 



292 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

measure. There is no need here to describe in detail a 
scheme which was foredoomed by its fantastic character to 
failure. It confused great issues ; it brought into play what 
Mr. Bright called fancy franchises ; it did not lower the 
voting qualification in boroughs ; its new property qualifica- 
tions were of a retrograde character ; and it left the working 
classes where it found them. It frightened staid Tories of 
the older school, and excited the ridicule, if not the indigna- 
tion, of all who had seriously grappled with the problem. 
The immediate effect was to unite all sections of the 
Liberal Party. Lord John led the attack, and did so on the 
broad ground that it did not go far enough ; and on April i, 
after protracted debate, the measure was defeated by a 
majority of thirty-nine votes in a House of six hundred and 
twenty-one members. Parliament was prorogued on April 1 9, 
and the country was thrown into the turmoil of a General 
Election. Lord John promptly appealed to his old con- 
stituents in the City, and in the course of a vigorous address 
handled the ' so-called Reform Bill ' in no uncertain 
manner. He declared that amongst the numerous defects 
of the Bill ' one provision was conspicuous by its presence 
and another by its absence.' He had deemed it advisable 
on the second reading to take what seemed to be the ' most 
clear, manly, and direct ' course, and that was the secret 
of his amendment. The House of Commons had 
mustered in full force, and the terms of the amendment had 
been carried. The result of the General Election was that 
three hundred and fifty Liberals and three hundred and two 
Conservatives were returned to Westminster. Parliament 
met on May 31, and Lord Hartington moved an amendment 
to the Address which amounted to an expression- of want of 
confidence. The amendment was carried by a majority 



LORD GRANVILLE'S IMPOSSIBLE TASK 293 

of thirteen on June 12, and Lord Derby's Administration 
came the same night to an end. The result of the division 
took both parties somewhat by surprise. The astonish- 
ment was heightened when her Majesty sent for Lord 
Granville, an action which, to say the least, was a left-handed 
compliment to old and distinguished advisers of the Crown. 
Happily, though the sovereign may in such high affairs of 
State propose, it is the country which must finally dispose, 
and Lord Granville swiftly found that in the exuberance of 
political youth he had accepted a hopeless commission. 
He therefore relinquished an impossible task, and the Queen 
sent for Lord Palmerston. 

In the earlier years of Lord John's retirement from 
office after the Vienna Conference his relations with some 
of his old colleagues, and more particularly with Lord 
Clarendon and Lord Palmerston, were somewhat strained. 
The blunders of the Derby Government, the jeopardy in 
India, the menacing condition of foreign pohtics, and, still 
more, the patriotism and right feeling of both men, gradu- 
ally drew Palmerston and Russell into more intimate 
association, with the result that in the early summer of 
1859 the frank intercourse of former years was renewed. 
More than twelve years had elapsed since Lord John had 
attained the highest rank possible to an English statesman. 
In the interval he had consented, under strong pressure 
from the most exalted quarters, to waive his claims by con- 
senting to serve under Lord Aberdeen ; and the outcome of 
that experiment had been humiliating to himself, as well as 
disastrous to the country. He might fairly have stood on 
his dignity — a fool's pedestal at the best, and one which 
Lord John was too sensible ever to mount — at the present 
juncture, and have declined to return to the responsibilities 



294 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

of office, except as Prime Minister. The leaders of the 
democracy, Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden, were much more 
friendly to him than to Lord Palmerston. Apart from pub- 
lished records. Lady Russell's diary shows that at the 
beginning of this year Mr. Bright was in close communica- 
tion with her husband. Lord John good-humouredly pro- 
tested that Mr. Bright alarmed timid people by his speeches; 
whereupon the latter replied that he had been much misrepre- 
sented, and declared that he was more willing to be lieu- 
tenant than general in the approaching struggle for Reform. 
He explained his scheme, and Lord John found that it had 
much in common with his own, from which it differed only 
in degree, except on the question of the ballot. ' There has 
been a meeting between Bright and Lord John,' was Lord 
Houghton's comment, ' but I don't know that it has led to 
anything except a more temperate tone in Bright's last 
speeches.' Mr. Cobden, it is an open secret, would not have 
refused to serve under Lord John, but his hostility to Lord 
Palmerston's policy was too pronounced for him now to 
accept the offer of a seat in the new Cabinet. He assured 
Lord John that if he had been at the head of the Administra- 
tion the result would have been different. Both Mr. Cobden 
and Mr. Bright felt that Lord Palmerston blocked the way to 
any adequate readjustment in home politics of the balance of 
power, and they were inspired by a settled distrust of his 
foreign policy. Lord John, on the other hand, though 
he might not move as swiftly as such popular leaders thought 
desirable, had still a name to conjure with, and was 
the consistent advocate, though on more cautious lines, 
of an extension of the franchise. Moreover, Lord John's 
attack on Palmerston's Government in regard to the 
conduct of the Chinese war, his vigorous protest against 



palmerston's mixed multitude 295 

the Conspiracy Bill, and his frank sympathy with Mazzini^s 
dream of a United Italy, helped to bring the old leader, 
in the long fight for civil and religious liberty, into 
vital touch with younger men of the stamp of Cobden, 
Bright, and Gladstone, of whom the people justly expected 
great things in the not distant future. Lord John knew, 
however, that the Liberal camp was full of politicians 
who were neither hot nor cold — men who had slipped into 
Parliament on easy terms, only to reveal the fact that their 
prejudices were many and their convictions few. They 
sheltered themselves under the great prestige of Lord 
Palmerston, and represented his policy of masterly inactivity, 
rather than the true sentiments of the nation. Lord Palmer- 
ston was as jaunty as ever ; but all things are not possible 
even to the ablest man, at seventy-five. 

Although Lord John was not willing to serve under 
Lord Granville, who was his junior by more than a score 
of years, he saw his chance at the Foreign Office, and 
therefore consented to join the Administration of Lord 
Palmerston. In accepting office on such terms in the 
middle of June, he made it plain to Lord Palmerston 
that the importance of European affairs at the moment had 
induced him to throw in his lot with the new Ministry. The 
deadlock was brought to an end by Lord John's patriotic 
decision. Mr. Gladstone became Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, Lord Granville President of the Council ; and 
amongst others in the Cabinet were Sir G. C. Lewis, Mr. 
Milner Gibson, Sir George Grey, and the Duke of Argyll. 
Though Cobden would not accept a place in the Govern- 
ment, he rendered it important service by negotiating the 
commercial treaty with France, which came into force at the 
beginni^ng of i860. Next to the abolition of the Corn Laws, 



2(jCj LOI'I) JOHN klJSSI'J.L 

wliirli lie more t,l)n,ii n.ny other iii.in ljrf>ii[',lit. about, it was 
the groat achievement of his career. I'rec Trade, l^y hberat- 
ing commerce from the bondage under which it groaned, 
gave food to starving multitudes, redressed a flagrant and 
tyrannical abuse of jKjwer, shielded a kingdom from the 
throes of revolution, and added a new and magical impetus 
lo iii;ilcii;il progress in every f|ii;i)t(r of the globe. The 
commeniial treaty with I'luhc, by cst.'iblishing mercantile 
syiiijj.'ithy .'itid iiilcrcour.se between two of thf; most 
p(;werfiil n.'ition'i ol the world, c.'irricd forward the work 
wliif li I'jcc Tr.'i(k- h.id begun, and, by bringing into play 
< (Mnninnily of interests, helped lo give [;eace a sure founda 
tion. 

r;n li.Miient met on );nin;ny 2/|, ;ui(l in the S|)cech from 
the ThrtMie .'I, keform liili w.'is prf>mi:. cd. It \v;is brought 
forward by 1 , OK I |olin I' u;..',e|| on Mnn h r the twenty tiinth 
;niniver:,;ny o( ;i led letlei d.iy in In:; life, the intro(hi< t ion of 
the (n;,t l\eloini bill, lie prcjposed to reduce the county 
inuM lii.'ic to If;/. fni;ililie.'ition, and the borough lo 6/. ; one 
menibei w;i:; lo be t.iken from e;r< li boiongh with ,'i j)oj)ula- 
tion o( less th.'U) seven thons.'uid, .'nid in this w;iy twenty five 
.seats were obl;iiiie(l for redistribution. I'ohtic.'d power was 
lo be j'iv<n wlieic the | )eo| ile wercM'ongregatcd, .'Uid Lf)rd 
John's S( Ik inc of le distribution gave two seats lo the West 
Kidiuf',, ;nid (;ne each to thiity (jther counties or divisions, 
.'ind live lo boroughs hilh( ilo unre[)resented. The claims 
of IVIanehester, I>ivcr[)ool, lliimingh.'un, :ni(l Leeds were 
recognised by the proposal to add aru^ther re[)rcscntative in 
each case ; and the claims of cultme were not forgotten, for 
;i member w.'is }',iven to London Ihiiversity. ( i.dlio like, 
I /Old r.iliiiersloii ( ;ired lor none of I liese lliiiij';;, .iiid he iii.ide 
no ;rtleiii|)t to ( oik <;il liis indifference. One-hall of the 



ACCEl'TS A I MCI': RACK 297 

Cabinet appear to have shared his dislash; for tlic measure, 
and two or three of them ri;garded it with aversion. If 
Cobden or Tki^^hl had l)Ccn in the C'abinct, affairs mii^^iit 
have taken a different course ; as it was, Lord John and Mr. 
Oladstone stood ahnost alone. 

The Radicals, tiionj^h j^ainitif^^ j^aound in the country, 
were nunierie.'iJly we;i.l< in the Mouse of (ionnnons, ;iiid the 
measure fell to the j^roimd helween the opposilion of the 
Tories .'uid the Oiinl- |)r;iise wilh vvliieii it w;i.s damned l)y 
the Wlii}^s. Iwen l<ord John was forced to confess tliat 
tlie a[)atl)y <jf the c(;imtry was imdeniiible. A more sweep- 
ing measure would have h;i.d ;i better chance, but so long 
as L(;rd I'almerston was at the head of affairs it was idle 
to expect it. Lord }()\u\ recognised the inevitable after 
a succession of dreary debates, and the mt:;isnre was with- 
drawn on |im(." II. Lord b'bii's first important spe(;ch 
in the Noiis(; of ( ,'ommons was made in the ye.ir of Teter- 
loo, when he brought forward, thirteen ye.iis before the 
Reform Jiill of JH32 was |)assed, proposals for an extension 
of the franchise ; and his last great si)eech in the I fousc of 
Commons at least siiowed how unmerited was the taunt of 
TinaHty,' for it scnight to give the working classes a share in 
the government of the counlry. 

Karly in the following yeiir, Lord John w.is raised to 
the peerage as ICarl Russell of Kingston- Russell and 
Viscount Ambeiley and Ardsalla. M cannot des[)atch,' 
wrote Mr. (lladstone, 'as I have just done, the Cliiltern 
Hundreds for you, without expressing the strong feelings 
winch even that form.il ;icl awakens. They are mixed, 
as well as strong ; for I hope you will be rejKiid in 
re[)ose, health, and tlie |)ower of hjng continuing service, 
for the heavy loss we suffer in the IIou;,e o( ('ommons. 



298 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Although you may not hereafter have opportunities of add- 
ing to the personal debt I owe you, and of bringing it 
vividly before my mind by fresh acts of courage and kind- 
ness, I assure you, the recollection of it is already indelible.' 
Hitherto, Lord John — for the old name is the one under 
which his family and his friends still like to apply to him — 
had been a poor man ; but the death, in the spring of this 
year, of his brother the Duke of Bedford, with whom, from 
youth to age, his intercourse had been most cordial, placed 
him in possession of the Ardsalla Estate, and, indeed, made 
possible his acceptance of the proffered earldom. Six 
months later, her IMajesty conferred the Garter upon him, 
as a mark of her 'high approbation of long and dis- 
tinguished services.' Lord John had almost reached the 
age of three score and ten when he entered the House of 
Lords. He had done his work in ' another place,' but he 
was destined to become once more First Minister of the 
Crown, and, as Mr. Froude put it, to carry his reputation at 
length off the scene unspotted by a single act which his bio- 
graphers are called upon to paUiate. 



299 



CHAPTER XV 

UNITED ITALY AND THE DIS-UNITED STATES 

1861-1865 

Lord John at the Foreign Office — Austria and Italy— Victor Emmanuel 
and Mazzini— Cavour and Napoleon III.— Lord John's energetic 
protest— His sympathy with Garibaldi and the struggle for freedom 
—The gratitude of the Italians— Death of the Prince Consort— The 
' Trent ' affair— Lord John's remonstrance —The ' Alabama ' diffi- 
culty—Lord Selborne's statement— The Cotton Famine. 

Foreign politics claimed Lord John's undivided atten- 
tion throughout the four remaining years of the Palmerston 
Administration. It was well for the nation that a states- 
man of so much courage and self-reliance, cool sagacity, and 
wide experience, controlled the Foreign Office in years when 
wars and rumours of war prevailed alike in Europe and in 
America. He once declared that it had always been his aim 
to promote the cause of civil and religious liberty, not merely 
in England, but in other parts of the world, and events were 
now looming which were destined to justify such an asser- 
tion. It is not possible to enter at length into the compli- 
cated problems with which he had to deal during his tenure 
of the Foreign Office, but the broad principles which anima- 
ted his policy can, in rough outline at least, be stated. It 
is well in this connection to fall back upon his own words ; 
' In my time very difficult questions arose. During the 
period I held the seals of the Foreign Office I had to discuss 



300 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the question of the independence of Italy, of a treaty regard- 
ing Poland made by Lord Castlereagh, the treaty regarding 
Denmark made by Lord Malmesbury, the injuries done to 
England by the republic of Mexico, and, not to mention 
minor questions, the whole of the transactions arising out of 
the civil war in America, embittered as they were by the 
■ desire of a party in the United States to lay upon England 
the whole blame of the insurrection, the " irrepressible con- 
flict " of their own fellow-citizens.' Both of these questions 
were far-reaching and crucial, and in his attitude towards 
Italy and America, when they were in the throes of revolu- 
tion, Lord Russell's generous love of liberty and vigour of 
judgment alike stand revealed. 

Prince Metternich declared soon after the peace of 1815 
that Italy was ' only a geographical expression.' The taunt 
was true at the time, but even then there was a young 
dreamer living who was destined to render it false. ' Great 
ideas,' declared Mazzini, ' create great nations,' and his 
whole career was devoted to the attempt to bring about a 
united Italy. The statesmanship of Cavour and the sword 
of Garibaldi were enlisted in the same sacred cause. The 
petty governments of the Peninsula grew suddenly impossible, 
and Italy was freed from native tyranny and foreign domi- 
nation. Austria, not content with the possession of 
Lombardy, which was ceded to her by the treaty of 1 8 1 5, 
had made her power felt in almost every direction, and 
even at Naples her authority prevailed. The Austrians 
were not merely an alien but a hated race, for they stood 
between the Italian people and their dream of national 
independence and unity, and native despotism could 
always count on their aid in quelling any outbreak of 
the revolutionary spirit. The governments of the country. 



COUNT CAVOUR 3OI 

Austria and the Vatican apart, were rendered contemptible 
by the character of its tyrannical, incapable, and superstitious 
rulers, but with the sway of such powers of darkness Sardinia 
presented a bright contrast. The hopes of patriotic Italians 
gathered around Victor Emmanuel II., who had fought 
gallantly at Novara in 1849, and who possessed more public 
spirit and common-sense than the majority of crowned 
heads. Victor Emmanuel ascended the throne of Sardinia 
at the age of twenty-eight, immediately after the crushing 
disaster which seemed hopelessly to have wrecked the cause 
of Italian independence. Although he believed, with Maz- 
zini, that there was only room for two kinds of Italians in 
Italy, the friends and the enemies of Austria, he showed 
remarkable self-restraint, and adopted a policy of concilia- 
tion towards foreign Powers, whilst widening the liberties of 
his own subjects until all over the land Italians came to 
regard Sardinia with admiration, and to covet ' liberty as it 
was in Piedmont.' 

He gathered around him men who were in sympathy 
with modern ideas of liberty and progress. Amongst 
them was Count Cavour, a statesman destined to 
impress not Italy alone, but Europe, by his honesty of 
purpose, force of character, and practical sagacity. From 
1852 to 1859, when he retired, rather than agree to the 
humiliating terms of the Treaty of Villafranca, Cavour was 
supreme in Sardinia. He found Sardinia crippled by defeat, 
and crushed with debt, the bitter bequest of the Austrian 
War ; but his courage never faltered, and his capacity was 
equal to the strain. Victor Emmanuel gave him a free 
hand, and he used it for the consoHdation of the kingdom. 
He repealed the duties on corn, reformed the tariff, and 
introduced measures of free trade. He encouraged public 



302 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

works, brought about the construction of railways and 
telegraphs, and advanced perceptibly popular education. 
He saw that if the nation was to gain her independence, and 
his sovereign become ruler of a united Italy, it was necessary 
to propitiate the Western Powers. In pursuance of such a 
policy, Cavour induced Piedmont to join the Allies in the 
Crimean War, and the Italian soldiers behaved with con- 
spicuous bravery at the battle of Tchernaya. When the war 
closed Sardinia was becoming a power in Europe, and 
Cavour established his right to a seat at the Congress of 
Paris, where he made known the growing discontent 
in Italy with the temporal power of the Papacy. 

In the summer of 1858 Napoleon III. was taking the 
waters at Plombieres, where also Count Cavour was on a 
visit. The Emperor's mood was leisured and cordial, and 
Cavour took the opportunity of bringing the Court of 
Turin into intimate but secret relations with that of the 
Tuileries. France was to come to the aid of Sardinia under 
certain conditions in the event of a war with Austria. 
Napoleon was not, of course, inclined to serve Victor 
Emmanuel for naught, and he therefore stipulated for 
Savoy and Nice. Cavour also strengthened the position 
of Sardinia by arranging a marriage between the Princess 
Clotilde, daughter of Victor Emmanuel, and the Emperor's 
cousin. Prince Napoleon. Alarmed at the military prepara- 
tions in Sardinia, and the growth of the kingdom as a 
political power in Europe, Austria at the beginning of 1859 
addressed an imperious demand for disarmament, which was 
met by Cavour by a curt refusal. The match had been 
put to the gunpowder and a fight for liberty took place. 
The campaign was short but decisive. The Austrian 
army crossed in force the Ticino, then hesitated and 



VILLAFRANCA 303 

was lost. If they had acted promptly they might have 
crushed the troops of Piedmont, whom they greatly out- 
numbered, before the soldiers of France could cross the 
Alps. The battle of Magenta, and the still more deadly 
struggle at Solferino between Austria and the Allies, decided 
the issue, and by the beginning of July Napoleon, for the 
moment, was master of the situation. 

The French Emperor, with characteristic duplicity, 
had only half revealed his hand in those confidential 
talks at Plombieres. Italy was the cradle of his race, 
and he too wished to create, if not a King of Rome, a 
federation of small States ruled by princes of his own 
blood. The public rejoicings at Florence, Parma, Modena, 
and Bologna, and the ardent expression of the populace 
at such centres for union with Sardinia, made the Emperor 
wince, and showed him that it was impossible, even 
with French bayonets, to crush the aspirations of a 
nation. Napoleon met Francis Joseph at Villafranca, and 
the preliminaries of peace were arranged on July 1 1 in a 
high-handed fashion, and without even the presence of 
Victor Emmanuel. Lombardy was ceded to Sardinia, though 
Austria was allowed to keep Venetia and the fortress of 
Mantua. France afterwards took Nice and Savoy ; and the 
Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Duke of Modena were 
restored to power. The Treaty of Zurich ratified these 
terms in the month of November. Meanwhile it was officially 
announced that the Emperor of Austria and the Emperor of 
the French would ' favour the creation of an Italian Con- 
federation under the honorary presidency of the Holy 
Father.' 

The Countess Martinengo Cesaresco, in a brilliant book 
published within the last few months on ' The Liberation 



304 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

of Italy,' in describing Lord John Russell's opposition 
to the terms of peace at Villafranca, and the vigorous 
protest which, as Foreign Minister, he made on behalf 
of England, says : ' It was a happy circumstance for Italy 
that her unity had no better friends than in the English 
Government during those difficult years. Cavour's words, 
soon after Villafranca, " It is England's turn now," 
were not belied.' ^ With Lord John at the Foreign 
Office, England rose to the occasion. Napoleon III. 
wished to make a cat's-paw of this country, and was 
sanguine enough to believe that Her Majesty's Govern- 
ment would take the proposed Italian Confederation 
under its wing. Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone, and Lord 
John Russell, were not, however, the men to bow to his 
behests, and the latter in particular could scarcely conceal 
his contempt for the scheme of the two emperors. ' We 
are asked to propose a partition of the peoples of Italy,' he 
exclaimed, ' as if we had the right to dispose of them.' 

Lord John contended that if Austria, by virtue of her 
presence on Italian soil, was a member of the suggested con- 
federation, she, because of the Vatican, the King of Naples, 
and the two dukes, would virtually rule the roost. He wrote to 
the British Minister at Florence in favour of a frank expres- 
sion on the part of the people of Tuscany of their own 
wishes in the matter, and declared in the House of 
Commons that he could have neither part not lot with any 
attempt to deprive the people of Italy of their right to choose 
their own ruler. He protested against the presence in Italy 
of foreign troops, whether French or Austrian, and in de- 
spatches to Paris and Vienna he made the French and 

» T/ie Liberation of Italy, 1815-1870, by the Countess Evelyn 
Martinengo Cesaresco (Seeley and Co. 1895), P- 252. 



FRANCE AND AUSTRIA 305 

Austrian Governments aware that England was altogether 
opposed to any return to that ' system of foreign interference 
which for upwards of forty years has been the misfor- 
tune of Italy and the danger of Europe.' Lord John urged 
that France and Austria should agree not to employ armed 
intervention for the future in the affairs of Italy, unless called 
upon to do so by the unanimous voice of the five Great 
Powers of Europe. He further contended that Napoleon 
III. should arrange with Pius IX. for the evacuation of 
Rome by the troops of France. He protested in vain against 
the annexation of Savoy and Nice by France, which he 
regarded as altogether a retrograde movement. In March 
i860, in a speech in the House of Commons, he declared 
that the course which the Emperor Napoleon had taken was 
of a kind to produce great distrust all over Europe. He 
regarded the annexation of Savoy, not merely as in itself an 
act of aggression, but as one which was likely to ' lead a 
nation so warlike as the French to call upon its Government 
from time to time to commit other acts of aggression.' 
England wished to live on the most friendly terms with 
France. It was necessary, however, for the nations of 
Europe to maintain peace, to respect not merely each others' 
rights, but each others' boundaries, and, above all, to restore, 
and not to disturb that 'commercial confidence which is 
the result of peace, which tends to peace, and which ulti- 
mately forms the happiness of nations.' When Napoleon 
patched up a peace with Francis Joseph, which practically 
ignored the aspirations of the Italian people, their indig- 
nation knew no bounds, and they determined to work out 
their own redemption. 

Garibaldi had already distinguished himself in the 
campaign which had culminated at Solferino, and he now 

X 



306 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

took the field against the Bourbons in Naples and Sicily, 
whilst insurrections broke out in other parts of Italy. 
France suggested that England should help her in arrest- 
ing Garibaldi's victorious march, but Lord John was too 
old a friend of freedom to respond to such a proposal. 
He held that the Neapolitan Government — the iniquities of 
which Mr. Gladstone had exposed in an outburst of righteous 
indignation in 1851 — must be left to reap the consequences 
of ' misgovernment which had no parallel in all Europe.' 
Garibaldi, carried thither by the enthusiasm of humanity 
and the justice of his cause, entered Naples in triumph on 
September 7, i860, the day after the ignominious flight of 
Francis IL Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed King of 
Italy two days later, and when he met the new Parliament 
of his widened realm at Turin he was able to declare : 
' Our country is no more the Italy of the Romans, nor the 
Italy of the Middle Ages : it is no longer the field for every 
foreign ambition, it becomes henceforth the Italy of the 
Italians.' 

Lord John's part in the struggle did him infinite credit. 
He held resolutely to the view all through the crisis, and 
in the face of the censure of Austria, France, Prussia, and 
Russia, that the Italians were the best judges of their own 
interests, and that the Italian revolution was as justifiable 
as the English revolution of 1688. He declared that, far 
from censuring Victor Emmanuel and Count Cavour, her 
Majesty's Government preferred to turn its eyes to the 
' gratifying prospect of a people building up the edifice of 
their liberties, and consolidating the work of their indepen- 
dence, amid the sympathies and good wishes of Europe.' 
Foreign Courts might bluster, protest, or sneer, but England 
was with her Foreign Minister ; and ' Punch ' summed up 



ITALY'S GRATITUDE 307 

the verdict of the nation in generous words of doggerel 
verse : 

' Well said, Johnny Russell ! That latest despatch 
You have sent to Turin is exactly the thing ; 
And again, my dear John, you come up to the scratch 
With a pluck that does credit to you and the Ring. ' 

The utmost enthusiasm prevailed in Italy when the 
terms of Lord John'3 despatch became known. Count 
Cavour and General Garibaldi vied with each other in 
emphatic acknowledgments, and Lord John was assured 
that he was ' blessed night and morning by twenty millions 
of Italians.' In the summer of 1864 Garibaldi visited 
England, and received a greater popular ovation in the 
streets of the metropolis than that which has been accorded 
to any crowned head in the Queen's reign. He went down 
to Pembroke Lodge to thank Lord John in person for the 
help which he had given to Italy in the hour of her greatest 
need. Lord John received a beautiful expression of the 
gratitude of the nation, in the shape of an exquisite marble 
statue by Carlo Romano, representing Young Italy holding 
in her outstretched arms a diadem, inscribed with the arms 
of its united States. During subsequent visits to Florence and 
San Remo he was received with demonstrations of popular 
respect, and at the latter place, shortly after his final retire- 
ment from office in 1866, he said, in reply to an address : ' I 
thank you with all my heart for the honour you have done 
me. I rejoice with you in seeing Italy free and independent, 
with a monarchical government and under a patriotic king. 
The Italian nation has all the elements of a prosperous 
pohtical life, which had been wanting for many centuries. 
The union of religion, liberty, and civil order will increase 
the prosperity of this beautiful country.' 

X 2 



308 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

A Still more delicate problem of international policy, 
and one which naturally came much nearer home to English 
susceptibilities, arose in the autumn of 1861 — a year which 
was rendered memorable on one side of the Atlantic by the 
outbreak of the Civil War, and on the other by the national 
sorrow over the unexpected death, at the early age of forty- 
two, of the Prince Consort. The latter event was not 
merely an overwhelming and irrevocable loss to the Queen, 
but in an emphatic sense a misfortune — it might almost be 
said a disaster- to the nation. It was not until the closing 
years of his life that the personal nobility and political 
sagacity of Prince Albert were fully recognised by the English 
people. Brought up in a small and narrow German Court, 
the Prince Consort in the early years of her Majesty's 
reign was somewhat formal in his manners and punctilious 
in his demands. The published records of the reign show 
that he was inclined to lean too much to the wisdom, which 
was not always ' profitable to direct,' of Baron Stockmar, a 
trusted adviser of the Court, of autocratic instincts and strong 
prejudices, who failed to understand either the genius of the 
English constitution or the temper of the English race. 
It is an open secret that the Prince Consort during the first 
decade of the reign was by no means popular, either with the 
classes or the masses. His position was a difficult one, for 
he was, in the words of one of the chief statesmen of the 
reign, at once the * permanent Secretary and the permanent 
Prime Minister ' of the Crown ; and there were undoubtedly 
occasions when in both capacities he magnified his office. 
Even if the Great Exhibition of 1851 had been memorable 
for nothing else, it would have been noteworthy as the 
period which marked a new departure in the Prince's 
relations with all grades of her Majesty's subjects. It not 



THE PRINCE CONSORT 309 

only brought him into touch with the people, but it brought 
into view, as well as into play, his practical mastery of 
affairs, and also his enlightened sympathy with the progress 
in art and science, no less than in the commercial activities, 
of the nation. It was not, however, until the closing years 
of his life, when the dreary escapades of the Coalition 
Ministry were beginning to be forgotten, that the great 
qualities of the Prince Consort were appreciated to any 
adequate degree. From the close of the Crimean War 
to his untimely death, at the beginning of the Civil War 
in America, was unquestionably the happiest as well as 
the most influential period in a life which was at once 
sensitive and upright. 

It ought in common fairness to be added that the 
character of the Prince mellowed visibly during his later 
years, and that the formality of his earlier manner was 
exchanged for a more genial attitude towards those with 
whom he came in contact in the duties and society of the 
Court. Mr. Disraeli told Count Vitzthum that if the Prince 
Consort had outlived the ' old stagers ' of political life with 
whom he was surrounded, he would have given to England 
— though with constitutional guarantees — the ' blessing of 
absolute government.' Although such a verdict palpably 
overshot the mark, it is significant in itself and worthy of 
record, since it points both to the strength and the limita- 
tions of an illustrious life. There are passages in Lady 
Russell's diary, of too personal and too sacred a character to 
quote, which reveal not only the poignant grief of the Queen, 
but the manner in which she turned instinctively in her 
burst of need to an old and trusted adviser of the Crown. 
High but artless tribute is paid in the same pages to the 
Queen's devotion to duty under the heart-breaking strain of 



3IO LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

a loss which overshadowed with sorrow every home in Eng- 
land, as well as the Palace at Windsor, at Christmas, 1861. 
The last act of the Prince Consort of an official kind 
was to soften certain expressions in the interests of interna- 
tional peace and goodwill in the famous despatch which 
was sent by the English Government, at the beginning of 
December, to the British Ambassador at Washington, when 
a deadlock suddenly arose between England and the 
United States over the ' Trent ' affair, and war seemed 
imminent. Hostilities had broken out between the North 
and the South in the previous July, and the opinion of 
England was sharply divided on the merits of the struggle. 
The bone of contention, to put the matter concisely, was the 
refusal of South Carolina and ten other States to submit to 
the authority of the Central Government of the Union. It 
was an old quarrel which had existed from the foundation 
of the American Commonwealth, for the individual States 
of the Union had always been jealous of any infringement 
of the right of self-government ; but slavery was now the 
ostensible root of bitterness, and matters were complicated 
by radical divergences on the subject of tariffs. The South- 
ern States took a high hand against the Federal Government. 
They seceded from the Union, and announced their inde- 
pendence to the world at large, under the style and title of 
the Confederate States of America. Flushed by the opening 
victory which followed the first appeal to the sword, the 
Confederate Government determined to send envoys to 
Europe. Messrs. Mason and Slidell embarked at Havana, 
at the beginning of November, on board the British mail- 
steamer ' Trent,' as representatives to the English and French 
Governments respectively. The 'Trent' was stopped on 
her voyage by the American man-of-war ' San Jacinto,' and 



THE 'TRENT' AFFAIR 3II 

Captain Wilkes, her commander, demanded that the Con- 
federate envoys and their secretaries should be handed over 
to his charge. The captain of the ' Trent ' made a vigorous 
protest against this sort of armed intervention, but he had 
no alternative except to yield, and Messrs. Mason and Slidell 
were carried back to America and lodged in a military fortress. 
The 'Trent' arrived at Southampton on November 27, 
and when her captain told his story indignation knew no 
bounds. The law of nations had been set at defiance, and 
the right of asylum under the British flag had been violated. 
The clamour of the Press and of the streets grew suddenly 
fierce and strong, and the universal feehng of the moment 
found expression in the phrase, ' Bear this, bear all.' Lord 
John Russell at once addressed a vigorous remonstrance to 
the American Government on an ' act of violence which was 
an affront to the British flag and a violation of international 
law.' He made it plain that her Majesty's Ministers were not 
prepared to allow such an insult to pass without ' full repa- 
ration ; ' but, at the same time, he refused to believe that it 
could be the ' deliberate intention ' of the Government of 
the United States to force upon them so grave a question. 
He therefore expressed the hope that the United States of 
its own accord would at once ' offer to the British Govern- 
ment such redress as alone could satisfy the British nation.' 
He added that this must take the form of the liberation of 
the envoys and their secretaries, in order that they might 
again be placed under British protection, and that such an 
act must be accompanied by a suitable apology. President 
Lincoln and Mr. Seward reluctantly gave way ; but their 
decision was hastened by the war preparations in England, 
and the protests which France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and 
Italy made against so wanton an outrage, 



312 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

The war took its course, and it seemed on more than one 
occasion as if England must take sides in a struggle which, it 
soon became apparent, was to be fought out to the bitter end. 
Thoughts of mediation had occurred, both to Lord Palmer- 
ston and Lord Russell, and in 1862 they contemplated the 
thankless task of mediation, but the project was abandoned 
as at least premature. Feeling ran high in England over the 
discussion as to whether the ' great domestic institution ' of 
Negro slavery really lay at the basis of the struggle or not, and 
public opinion was split into hostile camps. Sympathy with 
the North was alienated by the marked honours which were 
paid to the commander of the ' San Jacinto ; ' and the bravery 
with which the South fought, for what many people persisted 
in declaring was merely therightof self-government, kindled 
enthusiasm for those who struggled against overwhelming 
odds. In the summer of 1862 a new difficulty arose, and 
the maintenance of international peace was once more im- 
perilled. The blockade of the Southern ports crippled the 
Confederate Government, and an armed cruiser was built on 
the Mersey to wage a war of retaliation on the high seas 
against the merchant ships of the North. When the 
' Alabama ' was almost ready the Federal Government got 
wind of the matter, and formally protested against the ship 
being allowed to put to sea. 

The Cabinet submitted the question to the law officers 
of the Crown ; delay followed, and whilst the matter was 
still under deliberation the ' Alabama,' on the pretext of a 
trial trip, escaped, and began at once her remarkable career 
of destruction. The late Lord Selborne, who at that 
time was Solicitor-General, wrote for these pages the 
following detailed and, of course, authoritative statement 
of what transpired, and the facts which he recounts show 



THE 'ALABAMA' DIFFICULTY 313 

that Lord Russell, in spite of the generous admission which 
he himself made in his ' Recollections,' was in reality not 
responsible for a blunder which almost led to war, and which 
when submitted to arbitration at Geneva cost England — 
besides much irritation — the sum of 3,000,000/. 

' It was when Lord Russell was Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs, during the American Civil War, and when I 
was one of the Law Officers of the Crown, that I first be- 
came personally well acquainted with him ; and from that 
time he honoured me with his friendship. In this way 
I had good opportunities of knowledge on some subjects 
as to which he has been at times misrepresented or mis- 
understood ; and perhaps I may best do honour to his 
memory by referring to those subjects. 

' There can be no idea more unfounded than that which 
would call in question his friendliness towards the United 
States during their contest with the Confederates. But he 
had a strong sense, both of the duty of strictly observing all 
obligations incumbent on this country as a neutral Power 
by the law of nations, and of the danger of innovating 
upon them by the admission of claims on either side, not 
warranted by that law as generally understood, and with 
which, in the then state both of our own and of the 
American Neutrality Laws, it would have been practically 
impossible for the Government of a free country to comply. 
As a general principle, the freedom of commercial dealings 
between the citizens of a neutral State and belligerents, 
subject to the right of belligerents to protect themselves 
against breach of blockade or carriage of contraband, had 
been universally allowed, and by no nation more insisted on 
than by the United States. Lord Russell did not think it 
safe or expedient to endeavour to restrict that liberty. 



314 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

When asked to put in force Acts of Parliament made for the 
better protection of our neutrahty, he took, with promptitude 
and with absolute good faith, such measures as it would 
have been proper to take in any case in which our own 
public interests were concerned ; but he thought (and in 
my judgment he was entirely right in thinking) that it was 
not the duty of a British Minister, seeking to enforce British 
statute law, to add to other risks of failure that of uncon- 
stitutional disregard of the securities for the liberty of the 
subject, provided by the system on which British laws 
generally are administered and enforced. 

' It was not through any fault or negligence of Lord 
Russell that the ship "Alabama," or any other vessel 
equipped for the war service of the Confederate States, left 
the ports of this country. The course taken by him in all 
those cases was the same. He considered that ^omQprmta 
facie evidence of an actual or intended violation either of 
our own law or of the law of nations (such as might be 
produced in a court of justice) was necessary, and that in 
judging whether there was such evidence he ought to be 
guided by the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown. 
To obtain such evidence, he did not neglect any means 
which the law placed in his power. If in any case the Board 
of Customs may have been ill-advised, and omitted (as Sir 
Alexander Cockburn thought) to take precautions which they 
ought otherwise to have taken, this was no fault of Lord 
Russell ; still less was he chargeable with the delay of three 
or four days which took place in the case of the " Alabama," 
in consequence of the illness of the Queen's Advocate, Sir 
John Harding ; without which that vessel might never have 
gone to sea. 

'Lord Russell stated to Mr. Adams, immediately after- 



LORD SELBORNE'S EXPLANATION 315 

wards, that Sir John Harding's iUness was the cause 
of that delay. No one then called that statement in 
question, which could not have been made without 
good foundation. But after a lapse of many years, when 
almost everybody who had known the exact circumstances 
was dead, stories inconsistent with it obtained currency. 
Of these, the most remarkable was published in 1881, in a 
book widely read, the "Reminiscences" of the late Thomas 
Mozley. The writer appears to have persuaded himself 
(certainly without any foundation in fact) that " there was 
not one of her Majesty's Ministers who was not ready to 
jump out of his skin for joy when he heard of the escape of 
the 'Alabama.' " ^ He said that he met Sir John Harding 
" shortly after the ' Alabama ' had got away," and was told 
by him that he (Sir John) had been expecting a commu- 
nication from Government anxiously the whole week before, 
that the expectation had unsettled and unnerved him for 
other business, and that he had stayed in chambers rather 
later than usual on Saturday for the chance of hearing at 
last from them. He had then gone to his house in the 
country. Returning on Monday, when he was engaged to 
appear in court, he found a large bundle of documents in a 
big envelope, without even an accompanying note, that had 
been dropped into the letter-box on Saturday evening. To 
all appearance, every letter and every remonstrance and 
every affidavit, as fast as it arrived from Liverpool, had been 
piled in a pigeon-hole till four or five o'clock on Saturday, 
when the Minister, on taking his own departure for the 
country, had directed a clerk to tie up the whole heap and 
carry it to Doctors' Commons. 

' The facts are, that in the earlier stage of that business, 
* Second edition, 1892, chap. xcii. 



3l6 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

before July 23, the Attorney- and Solicitor-General only were 
consulted, and Sir John Harding knew nothing at all about 
it. No part of the statement said by Mr. Mozley to have 
been made to him could possibly be true ; because during 
the whole time in question Sir John Harding was under care 
for unsoundness of mind, from which he never even partially 
recovered, and which prevented him from attending to any 
kind of business, or going into court, or to his chambers, or 
to his country house. He was in that condition on July 23, 
1862 (Wednesday, not Saturday) when the depositions on 
which the question of the detention of the " Alabama " 
turned were received at the Foreign Office. Lord Russell, 
not knowing that he was ill, and thinking it desirable, from 
the importance of the matter, to have the opinion of all 
the three Law Officers (of whom the Queen's Advocate was 
then senior in rank), sent them on the same day, with the 
usual covering letter, for that opinion ; and they must have 
been delivered by the messenger, in the ordinary course, 
at Sir John Harding's house or chambers. There they 
remained till, the delay causing inquiry, they were re- 
covered and sent to the Attorney-General, who received 
them on Monday, the 28th, and lost no time in holding a con- 
sultation with the Solicitor-General. Their opinion, advising 
that the ship should be stopped, was in Lord Russell's hands 
early the next morning ; and he sent an order by telegraph 
to Liverpool to stop her ; but before it could be executed 
she had gone to sea. 

' Some of the facts relating to Sir John Harding's illness 
remained, until lately, in more or less obscurity, and Mr. 
Mozley's was not the only erroneous version of them which 
got abroad. One such version having been mentioned, 
as if authentic, in a debate in the House of Commons on 



THE QUESTION OF ARBITRATION 317 

March 17, 1893, I wrote to the " Times " to correct it ; and 
in confirmation of my statement the gentleman who had 
been Sir John Harding's medical attendant in July 1862 came 
forward, and by reference to his diary, kept at the time, 
placed the facts and dates beyond future controversy. 

' In the diplomatic correspondence, as to the " Alabama " 
and other subjects of complaint by the United States, Lord 
Russell stood firmly upon the ground that Great Britain had 
not failed in any duty of neutrality ; and Lord Lyons, the 
sagacious Minister who then represented this country at 
Washington, thought there would be much more danger to 
our future relations with the United States in any departure 
from that position than in strict and steady adherence 
to it. But no sooner was the war ended than new currents 
of opinion set in. In a debate on the subject in the House 
of Commons on March 6, 1868, Lord Stanley (then Foreign 
Secretary), who had never been of the same mind about it with 
his less cautious friends, said that a " tendency might be de- 
tected to be almost too ready to accuse ourselves of faults we 
had not committed, and to assume that on every doubtful 
point the decision ought to be against us." The sequel is well 
known. The Conservative Government consented to refer 
to arbitration, not all the questions raised by the Government 
of the United States, but those arising out of the ships alleged 
to have been equipped or to have received augmentation of 
force within the British dominions for the war service of the 
Confederate States ; and from that concession no other 
Government could recede. For a long time the Government 
or the Senate of the United States objected to any re- 
ference so limited, and to the last they refused to go into an 
open arbitration. They made it a condition, that new Rules 
should be formulated, not only for future observance, but for 



3l8 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

retrospective application to their own claims. This condi- 
tion, unprecedented and open in principle to the gravest 
objections, was accepted for the sake of peace with a 
nation so nearly allied to us ; not, however, without an 
express declaration, on the face of the Treaty of Washington, 
that the British Government could not assent to those new 
Rules as a statement of principles of international law which 
were in force when the claims arose. 

' While the Commissioners at Washington were engaged 
in their deliberations, I was in frequent communication both 
with Lord Granville and other members of the Cabinet, and 
also with Lord Russell, who could not be brought to 
approve of that way of settling the controversy. He had an 
invincible repugnance to the reference of any questions 
affecting the honour and good faith of this country, or its 
internal administration, to foreign arbitrators ; and bethought 
those questions would not be excluded by the proposed 
arrangement. He felt no confidence that any reciprocal 
advantages to this country would be obtained from the new 
Rules. Their only effect, in his view, would be to send us 
handicapped into the arbitration. He did not believe that 
the United States would follow the example which we 
had set, by strengthening their Neutrality Laws ; or that 
they would be able, unless they did so, to prevent violations 
of the Rules by their citizens in any future war in which 
we might be belligerent and they neutral, any more than 
they had been able in former times to prevent the equip- 
ment of ships within their territory against Spain and 
Portugal. It was not without difficulty that he restrained 
himself from giving public expression to those views ; but, 
from generous and patriotic motives, he did so. The sequel 
is not likely to have convinced him that his apprehensions 



THE COTTON FAMINE 319 

were groundless. The character of the " Case " presented 
on the part of the United States, with the "indirect 
claims," and the arguments used to support them, would 
have prevented the arbitration from proceeding at all, but 
for action of an unusual kind taken by the arbitrators. 
In such of their decisions as were adverse to this country, 
the arbitrators founded themselves entirely upon the new 
Rules, without any reference to general international law or 
historical precedents ; and the United States have done 
nothing, down to this day, to strengthen their Neutrality 
Laws, though certainly requiring it, at least as much as ours 
did before 1870.' 

Lord Russell then held resolutely to the view that her 
Majesty's Government had steadily endeavoured to maintain 
a policy of strict neutrality, and so long as he was in power 
at the Foreign Office, or at the Treasury, the demands of 
the United States for compensation were ignored. Mean- 
while, there arose a mighty famine in Lancashire through 
the failure of the cotton supply, and 800,000 operatives were 
thrown, through no fault of their own, on the charity of 
the nation, which rose splendidly to meet the occasion. 
All classes of the community were bound more closely to- 
gether in the gentle task of philanthropy, as well as in 
admiration of the uncomplaining heroism with which 
privation was met by the suffering workpeople. 



320 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



CHAPTER XVI 

SECOND PREMIERSHIP 

I 865-1 866 

The Polish Revolt — Bismarck's bid for power— The Schleswig-Holstein 
difficulty — Death of Lord Palmerston — The Queen summons Lord 
John — The second Russell Administration — Lord John's tribute to 
Palmerston — Mr. Gladstone introduces Reform — The ' Cave of 
Adullam ' — Defeat of the Russell Government — The people accept 
Lowe's challenge — The feeling in the country. 

Lord John, in his conduct of foreign affairs, acted with 
generosity towards Italy and with mingled firmness and 
patience towards America. It was a fortunate circumstance, 
for the great interests at stake on both sides of the Atlantic, 
that a man of so much judgment and right feeHng was in 
power at a moment when prejudice was strong and passion 
ran high. Grote, who was by no means consumed with en- 
thusiasm for the Palmerston Government, did not conceal 
his admiration of Lord John's sagacity at this crisis. ' The 
perfect neutrality of England in the destructive civil war 
now raging in America appears to me almost a phenomenon 
in political history. No such forbearance has been shown 
during the political history of the last two centuries. It is 
the single case in which the English Government and 
public, generally so meddlesome, have displayed most 
prudent and commendable forbearance in spite of great 



BISMARCK SHOWS HIS HAND 32 1 

temptations to the contrary.' Lord John had opinions, 
and the courage of them ; but at the same time he showed 
himself fully alive to the fact that no greater calamity 
could possibly overtake the English-speaking race than a 
war between England and the United States. 

Europe was filled at the beginning of 1863 with tidings 
of a renewed Polish revolt. Russia provoked the outbreak 
by the stern measures which had been taken in the previous 
year to repress the growing discontent of the people. The 
conspiracy was too widespread and too deep-rooted for 
Alexander II. to deal with, except by concessions to national 
sentiment, which he was not prepared to make, and, therefore, 
he fell back on despotic use of power. All able-bodied 
men suspected of revolutionary tendencies were marked 
out for service in the Russian army, and in this way, in 
Lord John's words, the ' so-called conscription was turned 
into a proscription.' The lot was made to fall on all 
political suspects, who were to be condemned for life 
to follow the hated Russian flag. The result was not 
merely armed resistance,, but civil war. Poland, in her 
struggle for liberty, was joined by Lithuania ; but Prussia 
came to the help of the Czar, and the protests of England, 
France, and Austria were of no avail. Before the year 
ended the dreams of self-government in Poland, after 
months of bloodshed and cruelty, were again ruthlessly 
dispelled. 

One diplomatic difficulty followed another in quick 
succession. Bismarck was beginning to move the pawns 
on the chess-board of Europe. He had conciliated 
Russia by taking sides with her against the Poles in spite 
of the attitude of London, Paris, and Vienna. He feared 
the spirit of insurrection would spread to the Poles in 

Y 



322 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Prussia, and had no sympathy with the aspirations of 
oppressed nationaUties. His pohcy was to make Prussia 
strong — if need be by ' blood and iron ' — so that she might 
become mistress of Germany. The death of Frederick VII. 
of Denmark provoked a fresh crisis and revived in an 
acute form the question of succession to the duchies of 
Schleswig-Holstein. The Treaty of London in 1852 was 
supposed to have settled the question, and its terms had been 
accepted by Austria and Prussia. The integrity of Denmark 
was recognised, and Prince Christian of Glucksburg was 
accepted as heir-presumptive of the reigning king. The 
German Diet did not regard this arrangement as binding, 
and the feeling in the duchies themselves, especially in 
Holstein, was against the claims of Denmark. But the 
Hereditary Prince Frederick of Augustenburg disputed the 
right of Christian IX. to the Duchies, and Bismarck induced 
Austria to join Prussia in the occupation of the disputed 
territory. 

It is impossible to enter here into the merits of 
the quarrel, much less to describe the course of the 
struggle or the complicated diplomatic negotiations which 
grew out of it. Denmark undoubtedly imagined that 
the energetic protest of the English Government against 
her dismemberment would not end in mere words. The 
language used by both Lord Palmerston and Lord John 
Russell was of a kind to encourage the idea of the 
adoption, in the last extremity, of another policy than 
that of non-intervention. Bismarck, on the other hand, it 
has been said with truth, had taken up the cause of Schles- 
wig-Holstein, not in the interest of its inhabitants, but in 
the interests of Germany, and by Germany he meant the 
Government of Berlin and the House of Hohenzollern. He 



AS SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD 323 

represented not merely other ideas, but other methods than 
those which prevailed with statesmen who were old enough 
to recall the wars of Napoleon and the partition of Europe 
to which they gave rise. It must be admitted that England 
did not show to advantage in the Schleswig-Holstein 
difficulty, in spite of the soundness of her counsels ; and 
Bismarck's triumph in the affair was as complete as the 
policy on which it was based was bold and adroit. Lord 
Palmerston and Lord John were embarrassed on the one 
hand by the apathy of Russia and France and on the 
other by the cautious, not to say timid, attitude of theif 
own colleagues. 'As to Cabinets,' wrote Lord Palmerston, 
with dry humour, in reply to a note in which Lord John 
hinted that if the Prime Minister and himself had been 
given a free hand they could have kept Austria from war 
with Denmark, ' if we had had colleagues like those who 
sat in Pitt's Cabinet, such as Westmoreland and others, 
or such men as those who were with Peel, like Goulburn 
and Hardinge, you and I might have had our own way in 
most things. But when, as is now the case, able men 
fill every department, such men will have opinions and 
hold to them. Unfortunately, they are often too busy 
with their own department to follow up foreign questions 
so as to be fully masters of them, and their conclusions 
are generally on the timid side of what might be the 
best.' 1 

Lord John wrote to Foreign Courts — was Mr. Bage- 
hot's shrewd criticism — much in the same manner as 
he was accustomed to speak in the House of Commons. 
In other words, he used great plainness of speech, and, 

* Life and Correspondence of Visconnt Palmerston, by the Hon, 
Evelyn Ashley, vol. ii. p. 438. 

Y 2 



324 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

because of the very desire to make his meaning clear, he, 
was occasionally indiscreetly explicit and even brusque. 
Sometimes it happened that the intelligent foreigner grew 
critical at Lord John's expense. Count Vitzthum, for ex- 
ample, laid stress on the fact that Lord John ' looked on the 
British Constitution as an inimitable masterpiece,' which 
less-favoured nations ought not only to admire but adopt, 
if they wished to advance and go forward in the direction 
of liberty, prosperity, and peace. There was just enough 
truth in such assertions to render them amusing, though 
'not enough to give them a sting. There were times when 
Lord John was the ' stormy petrel ' of foreign politics, but 
there never was a time when he ceased to labour in season 
and out for what he believed to be the honour of England. 
' I do not believ^e that any English foreign statesman, who 
does his duty faithfully by his own countrymen in difficult 
circumstances, can escape the blame of foreign statesmen,' 
were his own words, and he assuredly came in for his full 
share of abuse in Europe. One of Lord John Russell's 
subordinates at the Foreign Office, well known and dis- 
tinguished in the political life of to-day, declares that Lord 
John, like Lord Clarendon, was accustomed to write many 
drafts of despatches with his own hand, but as a rule did not 
go with equal minuteness into the detail of the work. It 
sometimes happened that he would take sudden resolutions 
without adequate consideration of the points involved ; but 
he would always listen patiently to objections, and when 
convinced that he was wrong was perfectly willing to 
modify his opinion. In most cases, however. Lord John 
did not make up his mind without due reflection, and 
under such circumstances he showed no vacillation. No 
tidings from abroad, however startling or unpleasant, seemed 



COBDEN AND PALMERSTON 325 

able to disturb his equanimity. He was an extremely 
considerate chief, but, though always willing to listen to 
his subordinates, kept his own counsel and seldom took 
them much into his confidence. 

The year 1865 was rendered memorable both in England 
and America by the death of statesmen of the first rank. 
In the spring, that great master of reason and economic 
reform, Richard Cobden, died in London, after a few 
days' illness, in the prime of life ; and almost before the 
nation realised the greatness of such a loss, tidings came 
across the Atlantic that President Abraham Lincoln 
had been assassinated at Washington, in the hour of 
triumph, by a cowardly fanatic. The summer in England 
was made restless by a General Election. Though Bright 
denounced Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone lost his 
seat at Oxford, to stand ' unmuzzled ' a few days later 
before the electors of South- West Lancashire, the pre- 
dicted Conservative reaction was not an accomplished 
fact. Lord Palmerston's ascendency in the country, though 
diminished, was still great, and the magic of his name 
carried the election. 'It is clear,' wrote Lord John to the 
plucky octogenarian Premier, when the latter, some time 
before the contest, made a fighting speech in the country, 
' that your popularity is a plant of hardy growth and deep 
roots.' Quite suddenly, in the spring of 1865, Lord Palmer- 
ston began to look as old as his years, and as the summer 
slipped past, it became apparent that the buoyant elasticity 
of temperament had vanished. On October 18 the great 
Minister died in harness, and Lord John Russell, who was 
only eight years younger, was called to the helm. 

The two men, more than once in mid-career, had 
serious misunderstandings, and envious lips had done their 



326 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

best to widen their differences. It is pleasant to think 
now that Pahiierston and Russell were on cordial and 
intimate terms during the critical six years, when the former 
held for the last time the post of First Minister of the Crown, 
and the latter was responsible for Foreign Affairs. It is true 
that they were not of one mind on the question of Parlia- 
mentary Reform ; but Lord John, after i860 at least, was 
content to waive that question, for he saw that the nation, as 
well as the Prime Minister, was opposed to a forward move- 
ment in that direction, and the strain of war abroad and 
famine at home hindered the calm discussion of con- 
stitutional problems. Lord Lyttelton used to say that 
Palmerston was regarded as a Whig because he belonged 
to Lord Grey's Government, and had always thrown in his 
lot with that statesman's political posterity. At the same 
time, Lord Lyttelton held — even as late as 1865 -that 
a ' more genuine Conservative, especially in home affairs, 
it would not be easy to find.' Palmerston gave Lord John 
Russell his active support in the attitude which the latter took 
up at the Foreign Office on all the great questions which 
arose, sometimes in a sudden and dramatic form, at a period 
when the power of Napoleon III., in spite of theatrical 
display, was declining, and Bismarck was shaping with con- 
summate skill the fortunes of Germany. 

The day after Palmerston's death her Majesty wrote in the 
following terms to Lord John : ' The melancholy news of 
Lord Palmerston's death reached the Queen last night. 
This is another link with the past that is broken, and 
the Queen feels deeply in her desolate and isolated con- 
dition how, one by one, tried servants and advisers are 
taken from her. . . . The Queen can turn to no other 
than Lord Russell, an old and tried friend of hers, to 



PRIME MINISTER 327 

undertake the arduous duties of Prime Minister, and to 
carry on the Government.' Such a command was met 
by Lord John with the response that he was wilhng to 
act if his colleagues were prepared to serve under him. 
Mr. Gladstone's position in the country and in the councils 
of the Liberal Party had been greatly strengthened by his 
rejection at Oxford, and by the subsequent boldness and 
fervour of his speeches in Lancashire. He forestalled Lord 
John's letter by offering, in a frank and generous spirit, to 
serve under the old Liberal leader. Mr. Gladstone declared 
that he was quite willing to take his chance under Lord 
John's ' banner,' and to continue his services as Chancellor 
of the Exchequer. This offer was of course accepted, and 
Mr. Gladstone also took Lord Palmerston's place as Leader 
of the House of Commons. Lord Cranworth became Lord 
Chancellor, Lord Clarendon took Lord John's place at the 
Foreign Office, the Duke of Argyll and Sir George Grey 
resumed their old positions as Lord Privy Seal and Home 
Secretary. After a short interval, Mr. Goschen and Lord 
Hartington were raised to Cabinet rank ; while Mr. Forster, 
Lord Dufferin, and Mr. Stansfeld became respectively 
Under-Secretaries for the Colonies, War, and India ; but 
Lord John, in spite of strong pressure, refused to admit 
Mr. Lowe to his Cabinet. 

At the Lord Mayor's banquet in November, Lord John 
took occasion to pay a warm tribute to Palmerston : ' It is a 
great loss indeed, because he was a man qualified to conduct 
the country successfully through all the vicissitudes of war 
and peace.' He declared that Lord Palmerston displayed 
resolution, resource, promptitude, and vigour in the conduct 
of foreign affairs, showed himself also able to maintain 
internal tranquillity, and, by extending commercial relation- 



328 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

ships, to give to the country the ' whole fruits of the blessings 
of peace.' He added that Lord Palmerston's heart never 
ceased to beat for the honour of England, and that his mind 
comprehended and his experience embraced the whole field 
which is covered by the interests of the nation. 

The new Premier made no secret of his conviction that, if 
the Ministry was to last, it must be either frankly Liberal or 
frankly Conservative. As he had the chief voice in the 
matter, and was bent on a new Reform Bill, it became, after 
certain changes had been effected, much more progressive 
than was possible under Palmerston. Parliament was 
opened on February i, 1866, by the Queen in person, for 
the first time since the death of the Prince Consort, and 
the chief point of interest in the Speech from the Throne 
was the guarded promise of a Reform Bill. The attention 
of Parliament was to be called to information concerning the 
right of voting with a view to such improvements as might 
tend to strengthen our free institutions and conduce to 
the public welfare. Lord John determined to make haste 
slowly, for some of his colleagues were hardly inclined to 
make haste at all, since they shared Lord Palmerston's 
views on the subject and distrusted the Radical cry which 
had arisen since the industrial revolution. The Premier 
and Mr. Gladstone — for they were a kind of Committee 
of Two — were content for the moment to propose a 
revision of the franchise, and to leave in ambush for another 
session the vexed question involved in a redistribution of 
seats. ' It was decided,' states Lord John, ' that it would 
be best to separate the question of the franchise from that 
of the disfranchisement of boroughs. After much inquiry, 
we agreed to fix the suffrages of boroughs at an occupation 
of 7/. value.' 



THE CAVE OF ADULLAM 329 

The House of Commons was densely packed when 
Mr. Gladstone introduced the measure on March 12, 
but, in spite of his powers of exposition and infectious 
enthusiasm, the Government proposals fell undeniably flat. 
Broadly stated, they were as follows. The county franchise 
was to be dropped to 14/., and that of the borough, as already 
stated, to half that amount, whilst compound householders 
and lodgers paying 10/. a year were to possess votes. It 
was computed at the time that the measure would add four 
hundred thousand new voters to the existing lists, and that 
two hundred thousand of these would belong to what Lord 
John termed the ' best of the working classes.' Mr. Bright, 
and those whom he represented, not only in Birmingham, 
but also in every great city and town in the land, gave their 
support to the Government, on the principle that this was 
at least an ' honest ' measure, and that half a loaf, moreover, 
was better than no bread. At the same time the country 
was not greatly stirred one way or another by the scheme, 
though it stirred to panic-stricken indignation men of the 
stamp of Mr. Lowe, Mr. Horsman, Lord Elcho, Earl Gros- 
venor. Lord Dunkellin, and other so-called, but very indif- 
ferent. Liberals, who had attached themselves to the party 
under Lord Palmerston's happy-go-lucky and easy auspices. 
These were the men who presently distinguished themselves, 
and extinguished the Russell Administration by their ridicu- 
lous fear of the democracy. They retired into what Mr. 
Bright termed the ' political cave of Adullam,' and, as Lord 
John said, the 'timid, the selfish, and those who were 
both selfish and timid ' joined the sorry company. 

The Conservatives saw their opportunity, and, being 
human, took it. Lord Grosvenor brought forward an 
amendment calling attention to the omission of a redis- 



330 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

tribution scheme. A debate, which occupied eight nights, 
followed, and when it was in progress, Mr. Gladstone, 
in defending his own conduct as Leader of the House, 
incidentally paid an impressive tribute to the memorable 
and protracted services in the Commons of Lord John : — 

' If, sir, I had been the man who, at the very outset of 
his career, wellnigh half a century ago, had with an almost 
prophetic foresight fastened upon two great groups of 
questions, those great historic questions relating to the 
removal of civil disabilities for religious opinions and to 
Parliamentary Reform ; if I had been the man who, having 
thus in his early youth, in the very first stage of his political 
career, fixed upon those questions and made them his own, 
then went on to prosecute them with sure and unflagging 
instinct until the triumph in each case had been achieved ; if 
I had been the man whose name had been associated for 
forty years, and often in the very first place of eminence, with 
every element of beneficent legislation — in other words, had 
I been Earl Russell, then there might have been some temp- 
tation to pass into excess on the exercise of authority, and 
some excuse for the endeavour to apply to this House a pres- 
sure in itself unjustifiable. But, sir, I am not Earl Russell.' 

In the end, Lord Grosvenor's amendment was lost by a 
majority equal only to the fingers of one hand. Such an un- 
mistakeable expression of opinion could not be disregarded, 
and the Government brought in a Redistribution of Seats 
Bill at the beginning of May. They proposed that thirty 
boroughs having a population of less than eight thousand 
should be deprived of one member, whilst nineteen other 
seats were obtained by joint representation in smaller 
boroughs. After running the gauntlet of much hostile 
criticism, the bill was read a second time, but the Govern- 



FALL OF THE RUSSELL GOVERNMENT 33 1 

ment were forced to refer it and the franchise scheme to a 
committee, which was empowered to deal with both schemes. 
Lord Stanley, Mr. Ward Hunt, and Mr. Walpole assailed 
with successive motions, which were more or less narrowly 
rejected, various points in the Government proposals, and 
the opposition grew more and more stubborn. At length 
Lord Dunkellin (son of the Earl of Clanricarde) moved to 
substitute rating for rental in the boroughs ; and the Govern- 
ment, in a House of six hundred and nineteen members, 
were defeated on June 18 by a majority of eleven. The 
excitement which met this announcement was extraordinary, 
and when it was followed next day by tidings that the Russell 
Administration was at an end, those who thought that the 
country cared little about the question found themselves 
suddenly disillusioned. 

Burke declared that there were moments when it 
became necessary for the people themselves to interpose on 
behalf of their rights. The overthrow of the Russell 
Administration took the nation by surprise. Three days 
after Lord John's resignation there was a historic gathering 
in Trafalgar Square. In his speech announcing the resigna- 
tion of his Ministry, Lord John warned Parliament about 
the danger of alienating the sympathy of the people from 
the Crown and the aristocracy. He reminded the Peers 
that universal suffrage prevailed not only in the United 
States but in our own Colonies ; and he took his stand in 
the light of the larger needs of the new era, on the 
assertion of Lord Grey at the time of the Reform Bill 
that only a large measure was a safe measure. ' We have 
made the attempt,' added Lord John, 'sincerely and 
anxiously to perform the duties of reconciling that which 
is due to the Constitution of the country with that which 



332 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

is due to the growing intelligence, the increasing wealth, 
and the manifest forbearance, virtue, and order of the 
people/ He protested against a niggardly and ungenerous 
treatment of so momentous a question. 

Lord Russell's words were not lost on Mr. Bradlaugh. He 
made them the text of his speech to the twenty thousand 
people who assembled in Trafalgar Square, and afterwards 
walked in procession to give Mr. Gladstone an ovation in Carl- 
ton House Terrace. About three weeks later another great 
demonstration was announced to take place in Hyde Park, 
under the auspices of the Reform League. The authorities 
refused to allow the gathering, and, after a formal protest, 
the meeting was held at the former rendezvous. The 
mixed multitude who had followed the procession to the 
Park gates took the repulse less calmly, with the result that, 
as much by accident as by design, the Park railings for the 
space of half a mile were thrown down. Force is no remedy, 
but a little of it is sometimes a good object-lesson, and 
the panic which this unpremeditated display occasioned 
amongst the valiant defenders of law and order was unmis- 
takeable. 

Mr. Lowe had flouted the people, and had publicly 
asserted that those who were without the franchise did not 
really care to possess it. Forty-three other so-called 
Liberals in the House of Commons were apparently of the 
same way of thinking, for the Russell Administration was 
defeated by forty-four ' Liberal ' votes. This in itself shows 
that Lord John, up to the hour in which he was driven from 
power, was far in advance of one section of his followers. 
The great towns, and more particularly Birmingham, Man- 
chester, and Leeds, promptly took up the challenge ; and in 
those three centres alone half a million of people assembled 



'DISHING THE WHIGS ' 333 

to make energetic protest against the contemptuous dismissal 
of their claims. The fall of the Park railings appealed to 
the fear of the classes, and aroused the enthusiasm of the 
masses. It is scarcely too much to say that if they had been 
demolished a month earlier the Russell Government would 
have carried its Reform proposals, and Disraeli would have 
lost his chance of 'dishing the Whigs.' The defeat of 
Lord John Russell was a virtual triumph. He was driven 
from power by a rally of reactionary forces at the very 
moment when he was fighting the battle of the people. ^ The 
Tories were only able to hold their own by borrowing a leaf 
from his book, and bringing in a more drastic measure of 
reform. 

* In a letter written in the spring of 1867, Lord Houghton refers to 
Mr. Gladstone as being ' quite awed ' for the moment by the ' diabolical 
cleverness of Dizzy. ' He adds : ' Delane says the extreme party for 
Reform are now the grandees, and that the Dukes are quite ready to 
follow Beale into Hyde Park.' — The Life, Letters, and Friendships of 
Lord Houghton^ by Sir Wemyss Reid, vol. ii. pp. 174-5. 



334 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



CHAPTER XVII 

OUT OF HARNESS 
1867-1874 

Speeches in the House of Lords— Leisured j^ears— Mr. Lecky's re- 
miniscences — The question of the Irish Church — The Independence 
of Belgium — Lord John on the claims of the Vatican — Letters to 
]\Ir. Chichester Fortescue -His scheme for the better government 
of Ireland — Lord Selborne's estimate of Lord John's public career 
— Frank admissions — As his private secretaries saw him. 

Lord John never relinquished that high sense of re- 
sponsibiUty which was conspicuous in his attitude as a 
Minister of the Crown. Although out of harness from the 
summer of 1866 to his death, twelve years later, he retained 
to the last, undiminished, the sense of pubHc duty. He 
took, not merely a keen interest, but an appreciable share in 
public affairs ; and some of the speeches which he delivered 
in the House of Lords after his retirement from office show 
how vigorous and acute his intellect remained, and how wide 
and generous were his sympathies. The leisured years 
which came to Lord John after the fall of the second Russell 
Administration enabled him to renew old friendships, 
and gave him the opportunity for making the acquaintance 
of distinguished men of a younger generation. His own 
historical studies — the literary passion of a lifetime — made 
him keenly appreciative of the work of others in that direction, 
and kindred tastes drew him into intimate relations with 



MR. LECKY'S REMINISCENCES 335 

Mr. W. E. H. Lecky. Few of the reminiscences, great or 
small, which have been written for these pages, can compare 
in interest with the following statement by so philosophic 
a critic of public affairs and so acute a judge of men : — 

'It was, I think, in 1866, and in the house of Dean 
Milman, that I had the privilege of being introduced to Lord 
Russell. He at once received me with a warmth and kind- 
ness I can never forget, and from this time till near the 
end of his life I saw him very frequently. His Ministerial 
career had just terminated, but I could trace no failure in 
his powers, and, whatever diiference of opinion there might 
be about his public career, no one, I believe, who ever came 
in contact with him failed to recognise his singular charm in 
private life. His conversation differed from that of some of 
the more illustrious of his contemporaries. It was not a 
copious and brilliant stream of words, dazzling, astonishing, 
or overpowering. It had no tendency to monologue, and it 
was not remarkable for any striking originalities either of 
language, metaphor, or thought. Few men steered more 
clear of paradox, and the charm of his talk lay mainly in his 
admirable terseness and clearness of expression, in the skill 
with which, by a few happy words, he could tell a story, or 
etch out a character, or condense an argument or statement. 
Beyond all men I have ever knovvn, he had the gift of seizing 
rapidly in every question the central argument, the essential 
fact or distinction ; and of all his mental characteristics, 
quickness and soundness of judgment seemed to me the 
most conspicuous. I have never met with anyone with 
whom it was so possible to discuss with profit many great 
questions in a short time. No one, too, could know him 
intimately without being impressed with his high sense of 
honour, with his transparent purity of motive, with the 



336 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

fundamental kindliness of his disposition, with the remark- 
able modesty of his estimate of his own past. He was 
eminently tolerant of difference of opinion, and he had in 
private life an imperturbable sweetness of temper that set 
those about him completely at their ease, and helped much 
to make them talk their best. Few men had more anecdotes, 
and no one told them better — tersely, accurately, with a 
quiet, subdued humour, with a lightness of touch which I 
should not have expected from his writings. In addition to 
the experiences of a long and eventful life, his mind was 
stored with the anecdotes of the brilliant Whig society of 
Holland House, of which he was one of the last repositories. 
It is much to be regretted that he did not write down his 
" Recollections " till a period of life when his once admirable 
memory was manifestly failing. He was himself sadly 
conscious of the failure. " I used never to confuse my facts," 
he once said to me ; " I now find that I am beginning to do 
so." 

' He has mentioned in his " Recollections " as one of the 
great felicities of his life that he retained the friendship of 
his leading opponents, and his private conversation fully 
supported this view. Of Sir Robert Peel he always spoke 
with a special respect, and it was, I think, a matter of 
peculiar pleasure to him that in his old age his family was 
closely connected by marriage with that of his illustrious 
rival. His friendship with Lord Derby, which began when 
they were colleagues, was unbroken by many contests. He 
spoke of him, however, as a man of brilliant talent, who had 
not the judgment or the character suited for the first place ; 
and he maintained that he had done much better both 
under Lord Grey and under Sir Robert Peel than as Prime 
Minister. Between Lord Russell and Disraeli there was, I 



^ 



HIS EARLY CHIEFS 337 

believe, on both sides much kindly feeling, though no two 
men could be less like, and though there was much in 
Disraeli's ways of looking at things that must have been 
peculiarly trying to the Whig mind. Lord Russell told me 
that he once described him in Parliament by quoting the 
lines of Dryden : — 

' He was not one on picking work to dwell. 
He fagotted his notions as they fell ; 
And if they rhymed and rattled, all was well. ' 

'Of his early chiefs, he used to speak with most 
reverence of Lord Grey. Lord Melbourne, he said, greatly 
injured his Government by the manner in which he treated 
deputations. He never could resist the temptation of ban- 
tering and snubbing them. Two men who flourished in his 
youth surpassed. Lord Russell thought, in eloquence any 
of the later generation. They were Canning and Plunket, 
and as an orator the greater of these was Plunket. Among 
the statesmen of a former generation, he had an especial 
admiration for Walpole, and was accustomed to maintain 
that he was a much greater statesman than Pitt. His judg- 
ment, indeed, of Pitt always seemed to me much warped by 
that adoration of Fox which in the early years of the cen- 
tury was almost an article of religion in Whig circles. Lord 
Russell had also the true Whig reverence for William HL, 
and, I am afraid, he was by no means satisfied with some 
pages I wrote about that sovereign. 

' Speaking of Lord Palmerston, I once said to him that I 
was struck wdth the small net result in legislation which he 
accomplished considering the many years he was in power. 
" But during all these years," Lord Russell replied, " he kept 
the honour of England very high ; and I think that a great 
thing." 

z 



338 LORD JOHN^^RUSSELL 

' The Imperialist sentiment was one of the deepest in 
his nature, and few things exasperated him more than the 
school which was advocating the surrender of India and 
the Colonies. " When I was young," he once said to me, 
" it was thought the work of a wise statesman that he had 
turned a small kingdom into a great empire. In my old age 
it seems to be thought the object of a statesman to turn a 
great empire into a small kingdom." He thought we 
had made a grave mistake, when conceding self-government 
to the Colonies, in not reserving the waste lands and free 
trade with the Mother Country ; and he considered that 
the right of veto on legislation, which had been reserved, 
ought to have been always exercised (as he said it was 
under Lord Grey) when duties were imposed on English 
goods. In Irish politics he greatly blamed Canning, who 
agreed with the Whigs about Catholic Emancipation, though 
he differed from them about Reform. The former question, 
he said, was then by far the more pressing, and if Canning 
had insisted on making it a first-class ministerial question he 
would have carried it in conjunction with the Whigs. " My 
pride in Irish measures," he once wrote to me, " is in the 
Poor Law, which I designed, framed, and twice carried." 
Like Peel, he strongly maintained that the priests ought to 
have been paid. He would gladly have seen the principle 
of religious equality in Ireland carried to its furthest con- 
sequences, and local government considerably extended ; 
but he told me that any statesman who proposed to repeal 
the Union ought to be impeached, and in his "Recollections," 
and in one of his published letters to the present Lord 
Carlingford, he has expressed in the strongest terms his 
inflexible hostility to Home Rule. 

' Though the steadiest of Whigs, Lord Russell was by no 



POLITICAL APPREHENSIONS 339 

means an uncompromising democrat. The great misfor- 
tune, he said, of America was that the influence of Jefferson 
had eclipsed that of Washington. One of her chief ad- 
vantages was that the Western States furnished a wide 
and harmless field for restless energy and ambition. In 
England he was very anxious that progress should move 
on the lines of the past, and he was under the impression 
that statesmen of the present generation studied English 
history less than their predecessors. He was one of the 
earliest advocates of the Minority Vote, and he certainly 
looked with very considerable apprehension to the effects of 
the Democratic Reform Bill of 1867. He said to me that 
he feared there was too much truth in the saying of one of 
his friends that " the concessions of the Whigs were once 
concessions to intelligence, but now concessions to igno- 
rance." 

' When the Education Act was carried, he was strongly in 
favour of the introduction of the Bible, accompanied by 
purely undenominational teaching. This was, I think, one 
of his last important declarations on public policy. I 
recollect a scathing article in the " Saturday Review," de- 
monstrating the absurdity of supposing that such teaching 
was possible. But the people of England took a different 
view. The great majority of the School Boards adopted the 
system which Lord Russell recommended, and it prevailed 
with almost perfect harmony for more than twenty years. 

' In foreign politics he looked with peculiar pleasure to 
the services he had rendered to the Italian cause. Italy 
was always very dear to him. He had many valued friends 
there, and he spoke Italian (as he also did Spanish) with 
much fluency. Among my most vivid recollections are 
those of some happy days I spent with him at San Remo.' 

z 2 



340 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Two years before the disestablishment of the Irish 
Church, Lord John Russell, knowing how great a stumbling- 
block its privileges were to the progress of the people, 
moved for a Commission to inquire into the expenditure of 
its revenues. The investigation was, however, staved off, 
and the larger question was, in consequence, hastened. He 
supported Mr. Gladstone in a powerful speech in 1870, and 
showed himself in substantial agreement with Mr. Forster 
over his great scheme of education, though he thought that 
some of its provisions bore heavily upon Nonconformists. 
The outbreak of war between France and Germany seemed 
at first to threaten the interests of England, and Lord John 
introduced a Militia Bill, which was only withdrawn when 
the Government promised to take action. The interests of 
Belgium were threatened by the struggle on the Continent, 
and Lord John took occasion to remind the nation that we 
were bound to defend that country, and had guaranteed by 
treaty to uphold its independence : — 

' . . . I am persuaded that if it is once manfully declared 
that England means to stand by her treaties, to perform her 
engagements — that her honour and her interest would allow 
nothing else — such a declaration would check the greater 
part of these intrigues, and that neither France nor Prussia 
would wish to add a second enemy to the formidable foe 
which each has to meet. . . . When the choice is between 
honour and infamy, I cannot doubt that her Majesty's 
Government will pursue the course of honour, the only one 
worthy of the British people. ... I consider that if 
England shrank from the performance of her engagements — 
if she acted in a faithless manner with respect to this matter 
— her extinction as a Great Power must very soon follow.' 

Lord John's vigorous protest did not go unheeded, and 



ATTACKS THE CLAIMS OF PIUS IX. 34 1 

the King of the Belgians sent him an autograph letter in 
acknowledgment of his generous and opportune words. On 
the other hand, Lord John Russell resented the determination 
of Mr. Gladstone to submit the ' Alabama ' claims to arbitra- 
tion, and also opposed the adoption of the Ballot and the 
abolition of purchase in the Army. The Conflict which arose 
in the autumn of 1872 between the Emperor of Germany 
and Pius IX. was a matter which appealed to all lovers of 
liberty of conscience. Lord John, though now in his eighty - 
second year, rose promptly to the occasion, and promised to 
preside at a great pubhc meeting in London, called to pro- 
test against the claims of the Vatican. At the last moment, 
though the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak, and 
yielding to medical advice, he contented himself with a 
written expression of sympathy. This was read to the 
meeting, and brought him the thanks of the Kaiser and 
Prince Bismarck. Lord John's letters, declared Mr. Kinglake 
seem to carry with them the very ring of his voice ; 
and the one which was written from Pembroke Lodge on 
January 19, 1874, was full of the old fire of enthusiasm and 
the resolution which springs from clean-cut convictions : — 
' I hasten to declare with all friends of freedom, and I trust 
with the great majority of the English nation, that I could no 
longer call myself a lover of civil and religious liberty were 
I not to proclaim my sympathy with the Emperor of 
Germany in the noble struggle in which he is engaged.' 

Lord John Russell's pamphlets, published in 1868-9 — in 
the shape of letters to Mr. Chichester Fortescue — show that 
in old age and out of office he was still anxious to see 
justice done to the legitimate demands of Ireland. He 
declared that he witnessed with alarm the attempt to involve 
the whole Irish nation in a charge of disaffection, conspiracy, 



342 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

and treason. He contended that Englishmen ought to seek 
to rid their minds of exaggerated fears and national 
animosities, so that they might be in a position to consider 
patiently all the facts of the case. ' We ought to weigh with 
care the complaints that are made, and examine with still 
more care and circumspection the remedies that are pro- 
posed, lest in our attempts to cure the disease we give the 
patient a new and more dangerous disorder.' In his ' Life 
of Fox ' Lord John Russell maintained that the wisest system 
that could be devised for the conciliation of Ireland had yet 
to be discovered ; and in his third letter to Mr. Chichester 
Fortescue, published in January 1869, he made a remark- 
able allusion to Mr. Gladstone as a statesman who might 
yet seek to ' perform a permanent and immortal service to 
his country ' by endeavouring to reconcile England and 
Ireland. If, added Lord John, Mr. Gladstone should ' under- 
take the heroic task of riveting the union of the three king- 
doms by affection, even more than by statute ; if he should 
endeavour to efface the stains which proscription and pre- 
judice have affixed on the fair fame of Great Britain, then, 
though he may not reunite his party ... he will be enrolled 
among the noblest of England's statesmen, and will have 
laid the foundations of a great work, which either he or a 
younger generation will not fail to accomplish.' 

The proposals Lord John Russell made in the columns of 
the ' Times,' on August 9, 1872, for the better government 
of Ireland have been claimed as a tentative scheme of Home 
Rule. ' It appears to me, that if Ireland were to be allowed to 
elect a representative assembly for each of its four provinces 
of Leinster, Ulster, Munster, and Connaught, and if Scotland 
in a similar manner were to be divided into Lowlands 
and Highlands, having for each province a representative 



IRISH PROPOSALS 343 

assembly, the local wants of Ireland and Scotland might be 
better provided for than they are at present.' Lord John 
went on to say that the Imperial Parliament might still 
retain its hold over local legislation, and added that it was 
his purpose to explain in a pamphlet a policy which he 
thought might be adopted to the ' satisfaction of the nation 
at large.' The pamphlet, however, remained unwritten, and 
the scheme in its fulness, therefore, was never explained. 
Evidently Lord Russell's mind was changing in its attitude 
towards the Irish problem; but, as Mr. Lecky points out in 
the personal reminiscences with which he has enriched 
these pages, though in advance of the opinion of the hour 
he was not prepared to accept the principle of Home 
Rule. Although Mr. Lecky does not mention the year 
in which Lord John declared that any statesman who ' pro- 
posed to repeal the Union ought to be impeached,' Lord 
Russell himself in his pubhshed ' Recollections ' admits that 
he saw no hope that Ireland would be well and quietly 
governed by the adoption of Home Rule. In fact, he makes 
it quite clear that he was in sympathy with the view which 
Lord Althorp expressed when O'Connell demanded the 
repeal of the Union — namely, that such a request amounted 
to a dismemberment of the Empire. On the other hand, 
Lord John was wont in his latest years to discuss the 
question in all its bearings with an Irish representative who 
held opposite views. There can be no doubt that he 
was feeling his way to a more generous interpretation 
of the problem than that which is commonly attributed 
to him. His own words on this point are : ' I should have 
been very glad if the leaders of popular opinion in Ireland 
had so modified and mollified their demand for Home Rule 
as to make it consistent with the unity of the Empire.' His 



344 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

mind, till within a few years of his death, was clear, and 
did not stand still. Whether he would have gradually 
become a Home Ruler is open to question, but in 1874 
he had gone quite as far in that direction as Mr. Glad- 
stone. 

Lord John, though the most loyal of subjects, made it 
plain throughout his career that he was not in the least 
degree a courtier. His nephew, Mr. George Russell, after 
stating that Lord John supported, with voice and vote, Mr, 
Hume's motion for the revision of the Civil List under 
George IV., and urged in vigorous tei:ms the restoration of 
Queen Caroline's name to the Liturgy, as well as subscribing 
to compensate an officer, friendly to the Queen, whom the 
King's animosity had driven from the army, adds : * It may 
well be that some tradition of this early independence, or 
some playful desire to test the fibre of Whiggery by putting 
an extreme case, led in much later years to an embarrassing 
question by an illustrious personage, and gave the oppor- 
tunity for an apt reply. " Is it true. Lord John, that you 
hold that a subject is justified, under certain circumstances, in 
disobeying his Sovereign's will ? " " Well," I said, " speak- 
ing to a Sovereign of the House of Hanover, I can only say 
that I suppose it is ! " ' ^ 

Looking back in the autumn of last year on the length and 
breadth of Earl Russell's public career, the late Earl Selborne 
sent for these pages the following words, which gather up his 
general, and, alas ! final impressions of his old friend and 
colleague : ' I have tried to imagine in what words an ancient 
Roman paneg}Tist might have summed up such a public 
and private character as that of Lord Russell. " Animosa 
juventus," and "jucunda senectus," would not inaptly have 
' Conte7nto7-ary Revieiv, vol. 56, p. 814. 



IMPULSIVE BUT CHIVALROUS 345 

described his earlier and his latter days. But for the life of 
long and active public service which came between, it is 
difficult to find any phrase equally pointed and characteristic. 
Always patriotic, always faithful to the traditions associated 
with his name, there was, as Sydney Smith said, nothing 
which he had not courage to undertake. What he under- 
took he did energetically, and generally in a noble spirit ; 
though sometimes yielding to too sudden impulses. As time 
went on, the generosity and sagacity of his nature gained 
strength ; and, though he had not always been patient when 
the control of affairs was in other hands, a successful rival 
found in him the most loyal of colleagues. Any estimate 
of his character would be imperfect which omitted to recog- 
nise either his appreciative and sympathetic disposition 
towards those who differed from him, even on points of 
importance, when he believed their convictions to be sincere 
and their conduct upright, or the rare dignity and magna- 
nimity with which, after 1866, he retired from a great posi- 
tion, of which he was neither unambitious nor unworthy, 
under no pressure from without, and before age or infirmity 
had made it necessary for him to do so.' 

Lord Selborne's allusion to Lord John's sympathetic 
disposition to those who differed from him, even on points 
of importance, is borne out by the terms in which he referred 
to Lord Aberdeen in correspondence — which was published 
first in the ' Times,' and afterwards in a pamphlet — between 
himself and Sir Arthur Gordon over statements in the first 
edition of 'Recollections and Suggestions.' Lord John 
admitted that, through lapse of memory, he had fallen into 
error, and that his words conveyed a wrong impression con- 
cerning Lord Aberdeen. He added : ' I believe no man has 
entered public fife in my time more pure in his personal 



346 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

views, and more free from grasping ambition or selfish con- 
sideration. I am much grieved that anything I have written 
should be liable to an interpretation injurious to Lord 
Aberdeen.' It is pleasant in this connection to be able to 
cite a letter, written by Lord Aberdeen to the Duke of 
Bedford, when the Crimean War was happily only a memory. 
The Duke had told Lord Aberdeen that his brother admitted 
his mistake in leaving the Coalition Government in the way 
in which he did. Lord Aberdeen in his reply declared that 
he did not doubt that Lord John entered the Government 
on generous and high-minded motives, or that, in consequence 
of delay, he might have arrived at the conclusion that he 
was in a somewhat false position. Any appearance of lack 
of confidence in Lord John, Lord Aberdeen remarked, was 
' entirely the effect of accident and never of intention.' He 
hints that he sometimes thought Lord John over-sensitive 
and even rash or impracticable. He adds : ' But these are 
trifles. We parted with expressions of mutual regard, which 
on my side were perfectly sincere, as I have no doubt they 
were on his. These expressions I am happy in having this 
opportunity to renew ; as well as with my admiration of his 
great powers and noble impulses to assure you that I shall 
always feel a warm interest in his reputation and honour.' 
Lord Stanmore states that his father ' steadily maintained 
that Lord John was the proper head of the Liberal party, 
and never ceased to desire that he should succeed him as 
Prime Minister.' Rashness and impatience are hard sayings 
to one who looks steadily at the annals of the Coalition 
Government. Lord Aberdeen and the majority of his 
Cabinet, were, to borrow a phrase from Swift, ' huge idolators 
of delay.' Their policy of masterly inactivity was disastrous, 
and, though Lord John made a mistake in quitting the 



RELATIONS WITH POLITICAL OPPONENTS 347 

Ministry in face of a hostile vote of censure, his chief mistake 
arose from the ' generous and high-minded motives ' which 
Lord Aberdeen attributes to him, and which led him to join 
the Coalition Government. 

His personal relations with his political opponents, from 
the Duke of Wellington to Lord Salisbury, were cordial. 
His friendship with Lord Derby was intimate, and he visited 
him at Knowsley, and in his closing years he had much 
pleasant intercourse with Lord Salisbury at Dieppe. His 
association with Lord Beaconsfield was slight ; but one of the 
kindest letters which I^ady Russell received on the death of 
her husband was written by a statesman with whom Lord 
Russell had little in common. Sir Robert Peel, in spite 
of the encounters of party warfare, always maintained 
towards Lord John the most friendly attitude. 'The 
idea which the stranger or casual acquaintance,' states his 
brother-in-law and former private secretary, Mr. George 
Elliot, ' conceived of Lord Russell was very unlike the 
real man as seen in his own home or among his inti- 
mates. There he was lively, playful, and uniformily good- 
humoured, full of anecdote, and a good teller of a story. ... In 
conversation he was easy and pleasant, and the reverse of 
disputatious. Even in the worst of his political difficulties — 
and he had some pretty hard trials in this way — he had the 
power of throwing off public cares for the time, and in his 
house retained his cheerfulness and good-humour. ... In 
matters of business he was an easy master to serve, and the 
duties of his private secretary were light as compared to 
others in the same position. He never made work and 
never was fussy, and even at the busiest times never seemed 
in a hurry. . . . Large matters he never neglected, but the 
difficulty of the private secretary was to get him to attend to 



348 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

the trifling and unimportant ones with which he had chiefly 
to deal' 

The Hon. Charles Gore, who was also private secretary to 
Lord John when the latter held the Home Office in the 
Melbourne Administration, gives in the following words his 
recollections : ' Often members of Parliament and others 
used to come into my room adjoining, after their interview 
with Lord, John, looking, and seeming, much dissatisfied 
with their reception. His manner was cold and shy, and, 
even when he intended to comply with the request made, in 
his answer he rather implied no than yes. He often used to 
say to me that he liked to hear the laugh which came to him 
through the door which separated us, as proof that I had 
been able to soothe the disappointed feelings with which his 
interviewer had left him. As a companion, when not feel- 
ing shy, no one was more agreeable or full of anecdote than 
Lord John — simple in his manner, never assuming superi- 
ority, and always ready to listen to what others had to say.' 
This impression is confirmed by Sir Villiers Lister, who 
served under Lord John at the Foreign Office. He states 
that his old chief, whilst always quick to seize great pro- 
blems, was somewhat inclined to treat the humdrum details 
of official life with fitful attention. 



349 



CHAPTER XVIII 

PEMBROKE LODGE 

1847-1878 

Looking back — Society at Peiiibroke Lodge — Home life — The house 
and its memories — Charles Dickens's speech at Liverpool — Literary 
friendships — Lady Russell's description of her husband — A packet 
of letters — His children's recollections — A glimpse of Carlyle — A 
witty impromptu — Closing days — Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone — The 
jubilee of the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts — ' Punch ' on 
the ' Golden Wedding ' — Death — The Queen's letter — Lord Shaftes- 
bury's estimate of Lord John's career — His great qualities. 

Peace with honour — a phrase which Lord John used long 
before Lord Beaconsfield made it famous — sums up the 
settled tranquillity and simple dignity of the life at Pem- 
broke Lodge. No man was more entitled to rest on his 
laurels than Lord John Russell. He was in the House of 
Commons, and made his first proposals for Parliamentary 
redress, in the reign of George III. His great victory 
on behalf of - the rights of conscience was won by the 
repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in the reign of 
George IV. He had piloted the first Reform Bill through 
the storms of prejudice and passion which had assailed 
that great measure in the reign of William IV. He was 
Home Secretary when Queen Victoria's reign began, and 
since then he had served her Majesty and the nation 
with unwearied devotion for almost the life-time of a genera- 
tion. He was Secretary for the Colonies during a period 



3 so LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

when the expansion of England brought dehcate constitu- 
tional questions to the front, and was Minister of Foreign 
Affairs when struggling nationalities looked to England, 
and did not seek her help in vain. Twice Prime Minister 
in periods of storm and stress, he had left his mark, directly 
or indirectly, on the statute-book in much progressive 
legislation, and, in spite of mistakes in policy, had at length 
quitted office with the reputation of an honest and enlight- 
ened statesman. 

Peel at the age of fifty-eight had judged himself worthy 
of retirement ; but Russell was almost seventy-four, and 
only his indomitable spirit had enabled him to hold his 
own in public life against uncertain health during the whole 
course of his career. In this respect, at least. Lord John 
possessed that ' strong patience which outwearies fate.' He 
was always delicate, and in his closing years he was accus- 
tomed to tell, with great glee, those about him an incident 
in his own experience, which happened when the century 
was entering its teens and he was just leaving his own. Three 
physicians were summoned in consultation, for his life 
appeared to be hanging on a thread. He described how 
they carefully thumped him, and put him through the usual 
ordeal. Then they looked extremely grave and retired to an 
adjoining room. The young invalid could hear them talk- 
ing quite plainly, and dreaded their return with the sentence 
of death. Presently the conversation grew animated, and 
Lord John found, to his surprise, they were talking about 
anything in the world except himself. On coming back, 
all the advice they gave was that he ought to travel 
abroad for a time. It jumped with his mood, and he 
took it, and to the end of his days travel never failed to 
restore his energies. 



IN SYLVAN RETREAT 351 

' For some years after his retirement from Ministerial 
life,' says Mr. Lecky, ' he gathered round him at Pembroke 
Lodge a society that could hardly be equalled — certainly 
not surpassed — in England. In the summer Sunday after- 
noons there might be seen beneath the shade of those 
majestic oaks nearly all that was distinguished in English 
politics and much that was distinguished in English litera- 
ture, and few eminent foreigners visited England without 
making a pilgrimage to the old statesman. Unhappily, this 
did not last to the end. Failing memory and the weakness 
of extreme old age at last withdrew him completely from 
the society he was so eminently fitted to adorn, but to 
those who had known him in his brighter days he has left 
a memory which can never be effaced.' 

Pembroke Lodge, on the fringe of Richmond Park, was, 
for more than thirty years. Lord John Russell's home. In 
his busiest years, whenever he could escape from town, the 
rambling, picturesque old house, which the Queen had 
given him, was his chosen and greatly loved place of retreat. 
' Happy days,' records Lady Russell, ' so full of reality. The 
hours of work so cheerfully got through, the hours of leisure 
so delightful.' When in office much of each week was of 
necessity passed at his house in Chesham Place, but he ap- 
preciated the freedom and seclusion of Pembroke Lodge, 
and took a keen delight in its beautiful garden, with its wind- 
ing walks, magnificent views, and spreading forest trees— truly 
a haunt of ancient peace, as well as of modern fellowship. 
There, in old age. Lord Russell loved to wander with wife 
or child or friend, and there, through the loop-holes of retreat 
amid his books and flowers, he watched the great world, and 
occasionally salUed forth, so long as strength remained, to 
bear his part in its affairs. 



352 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Lord J ohn Russell in his closing years thoroughly dis- 
trusted Turkish rule in Europe. He declared that he had 
formerly tried with Lord Palmerston's aid to improve the 
Turks, but came to the conclusion that the task was hopeless, 
and he witnessed with gladness the various movements to 
throw off their control in South-Eastern Europe. He was 
one of the first to call attention to the Bulgarian atrocities, 
and he joined the national protest with the political ardour 
which moral indignation was still able to kindle in a states- 
man who cherished his old ideals at the age of eighty-four. 
Two passages from Lady Russell's journal in the year 1876 
speak for themselves : — ' x\ugust 18. My dearest husband 
eighty-four. The year has left its mark upon him, a deeper 
mark than most years .... but he is happy, even merry. 
Seventy or eighty of our school children came up and sang in 
front of his window. They had made a gay flag on which 
were written four lines of a little poem to him. He was much 
pleased and moved with the pretty sight and pretty sound. I 
may say the same of Lord Granville, who happened to be here 
at the time.' Two months later occurs the following entry: 
' Interesting visit from the Bulgarian delegates, who called 
to thank John for the part he has taken. They utterly 
deny the probability of civil war or bloodshed between 
different Christian sects, or between Christian and Mussul- 
man, in case of Bulgaria and the other insurgent provinces 
obtaining self-government. Their simple, heart-felt words of 
gratitude to John were touching to us all.' 

History repeats itself at Pembroke Lodge. On May 16, 
1895, a party of Armenian refugees went thither on the ground 
that ' the name of Lord John Russell is honoured by every 
Christian under the rule of the Turk.' It recalled to Lady 



kinglake's description 353 

Russell the incident just recorded, and the interview, she 
states, was ' a heart-breaking one, although gratitude for 
British sympathy seemed uppermost in what they wished to 
express. After they were gone I thought, as I have often 
thought before, how right my husband was in feeling and in 
saying, as he often did, that Goldsmith was quite wrong in 
these two lines in "The Traveller" : 

' How small of all that human hearts endure 
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure ! 

He often recited them with disapproval when any occurrence 
made him feel how false they were.' 

Lord John's manner of life, like his personal tastes, was 
simple. He contrived to set the guests who gathered 
around him at his wife's receptions perfectly at their ease, by 
his old-fashioned gallantry, happy humour, and bright, vigor- 
ous talk. One room in Pembroke Lodge, from the windows 
of which a glorious view of the wooded valley is obtained, 
has been rendered famous by Kinglake's description ^ of a cer- 
tain drowsy summer evening in June 1854, when the Aber- 
deen Cabinet assembled in it, at the very moment when they 
were drifting into war. Other rooms in the house are full of 
memories of Garibaldi and Livingstone, of statesmen, ambas- 
sadors, authors, and, indeed, of men distinguished in every 
walk of life, but chiefly of Lord John himself, in days of 
intellectual toil, as well as in hours of friendly intercourse 
and happy relaxation. 

* History of the War in the Crimea, by A. W. Kinglake, vol. ii. 
sixth edition, pp. 249-50. 

Lady Russell states that Lord John used to smile at Kinglake's 
rhetorical exaggeration of the scene. Her impression is that only two 
of the Cabinet, and not, as the historian puts it, ' all but a small 
minority,' fell asleep. The Duke of Argyll or Mr. Gladstone can 
alone settle the point at issue. 

A A 



354 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Charles Dickens, speaking in 1869 at a banquet in Liver- 
pool, held in his honour, over which Lord Dufferin pre- 
sided, refused to allow what he regarded as a covert 
sneer against the House of Lords to pass unchallenged. 
He repelled the insinuation with unusual warmth, and laid 
stress on his own regard for individual members of that 
assembly. Then, on the spur of the moment, came an 
unexpected personal tribute. He declared that ' there was 
no man in England whom he respected more in his public 
capacity, loved more in his private capacity, or from whom 
he had received more remarkable proofs of his honour 
and love of literature than Lord John Russell.' The 
compliment took Lord Russell by surpiise; but if space 
allowed, or necessity claimed, it would be easy to prove 
that it was not undeserved. From the days of his youth, 
when he lived under the roof of Dr. Playfair, and 
attended the classes of Professor Dugald Stewart in 
Edinburgh, and took his part, as a protege of Lord 
Holland, in the brilliant society of Holland House, Lord 
John's leanings towards Hterature, and friendship with other 
literary men had been marked. As in the case of other 
Prime Ministers of the Queen's reign, and notably of Derby, 
Beaconsfield, and Mr. Gladstone, literature was his pastime, 
if politics was his pursuit, for his interests were always wider 
than the question of the hour. He was the friend of Sir James 
Mackintosh and of Sydney Smith, who playfully termed 
him ' Lord John Reformer,' of Moore and Rogers, Jeffrey 
and Macaulay, Dickens and Thackeray, Tyndall and Sir 
Richard Owen, Motley and Sir Henry Taylor, Browning and 
Tennyson, to mention only a few representative men. 

When the students of Glasgow University wished, in 1846, 
to do him honour, Lord John gracefully begged them to ap- 



LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS 355 

point as Lord Rector a man of creative genius, like Words- 
worth, rather than himself. As Prime Minister he honoured 
science by selecting Sir John Herschel as Master of the Mint, 
and literature, by the recommendation of Alfred Tennyson as 
Poet Laureate. When Sir Walter Scott was creeping back in 
broken health from Naples to die at Abbotsford it was Lord 
John who cheered the sad hours of illness in the St. James's 
Hotel, Jermyn Street, by a delicately worded offer of financial 
help from the public funds. Leigh Hunt, Christopher North, 
Sheridan Knowles, Father Mathew, the widow of Dr. Chalmers, 
and the children of Tom Hood are names which suggest the 
direction in which he used his patronage as First Minister 
of the Crown. He was in the habit of enlivening his 
political dinner parties by invoking the aid of Uterary men 
of wit and distinction, and nothing delighted him more than 
to bring, in this pleasant fashion, literature and politics to 
close quarters. The final pages of his ' Recollections and 
Suggestions ' were written in Lord Tennyson's study at Aid- 
worth, and his relations with Moore at an earlier stage of 
his life were even more intimate. 

Lord John Russell was twice married : first, on April 11, 
1835, to Adelaide, daughter of Mr. Thomas Lister, of 
Armitage Park, Staffordshire, the young widow of Thomas, 
second Lord Ribblesdale ; and second, on July 20, 1841, 
to Lady Frances Anna Maria Elliot, second daughter of 
Gilbert, second Earl of Minto. By his first wife he had 
two daughters, the late Lady Victoria Villiers, and Lady 
Georgiana Peel ; and by his second three sons and one 
daughter — John, Viscount Amberley, the Hon. George 
William Gilbert, formerly of the 9th Lancers, the Hon. Francis 
Albert RoUo, and Lady Mary Agatha. Viscount Amberley 
married, on November 8, 1864, the fifth daughter of Lord 

A A 2 



356 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

Stanley of Alderley. Lord Amberley died two years before 
his father, and the peerage descended to the elder of his 
two sons, the present Earl Russell. 

Lady Russell states : ' Our way of life during the session, 
from the time we first settled in Pembroke Lodge till John 
ceased to take any active part in politics, was to be there from 
Wednesday to Thursday and from Saturday to Monday. 
This made him spend much time on the road ; but he always 
said the good it did him to snatch all he could of the delight 
of his own quiet country home, to breathe its pure air, and 
be cheered by the sight of his merry children, far outweighed 
the time and trouble it cost him. When he was able to 
leave town tolerably early, he used sometimes to ride down 
all the way ; but he oftener drove to Hammersmith Bridge, 
where his horse, and such of our children as were old enough 
to ride met him, and how joyfully I used to catch the first 
sight of the happy riders — he on his roan " Surrey " and they 
on their pretty ponies — from the little mount in our 
grounds ! He was very fond of riding, and in far later days, 
when age and infirmity obliged him to give it up, used often 
to say in a sad tone, pointing to some of his favourite grassy 
rides, as we drove together in the park, " Ah ! what pleasant 
gallops we used to have along there ! " ' Lord John was 
seen to great advantage in his own home and with his 
children. Even when the cares of State pressed most heavily 
on him he always seemed to the children about him to 
have leisure to enter with gay alacrity into their plans and 
amusements. When at home, no matter how urgent the 
business in hand, he always saw them either in the house or 
the garden every day, and took the liveliest interest in the 
round of their life, alike in work and play. He had con- 
quered the art of bearing care lightly. He seldom allowed 



A PACKET OF OLD LETTERS 357 

public affairs to distract him in moments of leisure. He 
was able to throw aside the cares of office, and to enter with 
vivacity and humour into social diversions. His equable 
temper and placid disposition served him in good stead amid 
the turmoil and excitement of political life. 

Sorrows, neither few nor light, fell upon the household 
at Pembroke Lodge in the closing years of Lord Russell's 
life ; but ' trials,' as Lady Russell puts it in her journal, 'had 
taught Lord John to feel for others, and age had but 
deepened his religion of love.' In reply to a birthday letter 
from Mr. Archibald Peel, his son-in-law, and nephew of his 
great political rival he said : ' Thanks for your good wishes. 
Happy returns ! I always find them, as my children are so 
affectionate and loving ; " many " I cannot expect, but I have 
played my part.' Two or three extracts from a packet of 
letters addressed by Lord John to his daughter. Lady Geor- 
giana Peel, will be read with interest. The majority of them 
are of too intimate and personal a kind for quotation. Yet 
the whole of them leave the impression that Lord John, who 
reproaches himself in one instance as a bad correspondent, 
was at least a singularly good father. They cover a con- 
siderable term of years, and though for the most part deal- 
ing with private affairs, and often in a spirit of pleasant 
raillery, here and there allusions to public events occur in 
passing. In one of them, written from Gotha in the autumn 
of 1862, when Lord John was in attendance on her Majesty, 
he says : ' We have been dull here, but the time has never 
hung heavy on our hands. Four boxes of despatches and 
then telegrams, all requiring answers, have been our daily 
food.' He refers touchingly to the Queen's grief, and there 
is also an allusion to the minor tribulation of a certain 
little boy in England who had just crossed . the threshold 



358 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

of school-life. Probably Lord John was thinking of his 
own harsh treatment at Westminster, more than sixty years 
before, when he wrote : ' Poor Willy ! He will find a public 
school a rough place, and the tears will come into his eyes 
when he thinks of the very soft nest he left at home.' 

Ecclesiastical affairs never lost their interest to the author 
of the Durham Letter, and the following comments show 
his attitude on Church questions. The first is from a letter 
written on May 23, 1867 : 'The Church has been greatly 
disturbed. The Bishop of Salisbury has claimed for the 
English clergy all the power of the Roman priests. The 
question whether they are to wear white surplices, or blue, 
green, yellow, or red, becomes a minor question in compari- 
son. Of course the Bishop and those who think with him 
throw off the authority of our excellent Thirty-nine Articles 
altogether, and ought to leave the Church to the Protestant 
clergy and laity.' England just then, in Carlyle's judgment, 
was 'shooting Niagara,' and Disraeli's reform proposals 
were making a stir in the opposite camp. In the letter above 
quoted Lord John says : ' Happily, we are about to get rid 
of the compound householder. I am told Dizzy expects to 
be the first President of the British Republic' Mr. Gladstone, 
according to Lord Houghton, seemed at the same moment 
' quite awed with the diabolical cleverness of Dizzy.' The 
second bears date Woburn Abbey, September 29, 1868 : 
' Dr. Temple is a man I greatly admire, and he has 
become more valuable to his country since the death of 
our admirable Dean of St. Paul's. If I had any voice in 
the appointment. Temple is the man I should wish to see 
succeed to Milman ; but I suppose the " Essays and Re- 
views " will tell heavily against him.' ' We lead a very quiet 
life here and a very happy one. I sometimes regret not seeing 



LADY GEORGIAN A PEEL 359 

my old political friends a little oftener.' ' In June [1869] I 
expect Dickens to visit us. We went to see him last night 
in the murder of Nancy by Sikes, and Mrs. Gamp. He 
acts like a great actor, and writes like a great author. Irish 
Church is looming very near in the Commons, and, in 
June, in the Lords. The Archbishops and Bishops do not 
wish to oppose the second reading, but Lord Cairns is pre- 
pared to hack and hew in committee.' 

The recollections of Lord John's children reveal, by 
incidents too trivial in themselves to quote, how completely 
he entered into their life. Lady Georgiana Peel recalls her 
childish tears when her father arrived too late from London 
one evening to see one of the glorious sunsets which he 
had taught her to admire. ' I can feel now his hand on my 
forehead in any childish illness, or clasping mine in the 
garden, as he led me out to forget some trifling sorrow.' 
She lays stress on his patience and serene temper, on his 
tender heart, and on the fact that he always found leisure on 
the busiest day to enter into the daily life of his little girls. 
Half heartedness, either in work or play, was not to his mind. 
' Do what you are doing ' was the advice he gave to his 
children. 

One of the elder children in far-off days at Pembroke 
Lodge, Mrs. Warburton, Lord John's step-daughter, recalls 
wet days in the country, when her father would break the 
tedium of temporary imprisonment indoors by romping with 
his children. ' I have never forgotten his expression of 
horror when in a game of hide-and-seek he banged the door 
accidentally in my elder sister's face and we heard her fall. 
Looking back to the home life, its regularity always astonishes 
me. The daily walks, prayers, and meals regular and 
punctual as a rule. . . . He was shy and we were shy, but I 



360 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

think we spoke quite freely with him, and he seldom said 
more than " Foolish child " when we ventured on any startling 
views on things. Once I remember rousing his indignation 
when I gave out, with sententious priggishness, that the 
Duke of Wellington laboured under great difficulties in 
Spain caused by the "factious opposition at home ; " that 
was beyond " Foolish child," but my discomforted distress 
was soon soothed by a pat on the cheek, and an amused 
twinkle in his kind eyes.' Lord Amberley, four days before 
his death, declared that he had all his life ' met with nothing 
but kindness and gentleness ' from his father. He added : 
' I do earnestly hope that at the end of his long and noble 
life he may be spared the pain of losing a son.' 

Mr. Rollo Russell says : ' My father was very fond 
of history, and I can remember his often turning back 
to Hume, Macaulay, Hallam, and other historical works. 
He read various books on the French Revolution with 
great interest. He had several classics always near him, 
such as Homer and Virgil ; and he always carried about 
with him a small edition of Horace. Of Shakespeare 
he could repeat much, and knew the plays well, entering 
into and discussing the characters. He admired Milton 
very greatly and was fond of reading " Paradise Lost." 
He was very fond of several Italian and Spanish books, 
by the greatest authors of those countries. Of lighter read 
ing, he admired most, I think, "Don Quixote," Sir Walter 
Scott's novels. Miss Evans' (" George Eliot ") novels. Miss 
Austen's, and Dickens and Thackeray. Scott especially he 
loved to read over again. He told me he bought " Waverley " 
when it first came out, and was so interested in it that he 
sat up a great part of the night till he had finished it.' 

Lady Russell states that Grote's ' History of Greece ' was 



THE FRIENDSHIP OF BOOKS 361 

one of the last books her husband read, and she adds : 
' Many of his friends must have seen its volumes open before 
him on the desk of his blue armchair in his sitting-room at 
Pembroke Lodge in the last year or two of his life. It was 
often exchanged for Jowett's " Plato," in which he took great 
delight, and which he persevered in trying to read, when, 
alas ! the worn-out brain refused to take in the meaning.' 

Lord John was a delightful travelling companion, and he 
liked to journey with his children about him. His cheer- 
fulness and merriment on these occasions is a happy 
memory. Dr. Anderson, of Richmond, who has been for 
many years on intimate terms at Pembroke Lodge, and was 
much abroad with Lord John in the capacity of physician 
and friend, states that all who came in contact personally 
with him became deeply attached to him. "This arose 
not only from the charm of his manner and conversation, 
but from the fact that he felt they trusted him implicitly. 
' I never saw anyone laugh so heartily. He seemed almost 
convulsed with merriment, and he once told me that after a 
supper with Tom Moore, the recollection of some of the 
witty things said during the course of the evening so tickled 
him, that he had to stop and hold by the railings while 
laughing on his way home. I once asked which of all the 
merry pictures in " Punch " referring to himself amused him 
the most, and he at once replied : " The little boy who has 
written ' No Popery ' on a wall and is running away because 
he sees a policeman coming. I think that was very funny ! " ' 
Dr. Anderson says that Lord John was generous to a fault 
and easily moved to tears, and adds : ' I never knew any 
one more tender in illness or more anxious to help.' He 
states that Lord John told him that he had encountered 
Carlyle one day in Regent Street. He stopped, and asked 



362 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

him if he had seen a paragraph in that morning's ' Times ' 
about the Pope. ' What ! ' exclaimed Carlyle, ' the Pope, 
the Pope ! The back of ma han' for that auld chimera ! ' 
Lady Russell says : ' As far as I recollect he never 
but once worked after dinner. He always came up to the 
drawing-room with us, was able to cast off public cares, and 
chat and laugh, and read and be read to, or join in little 
games, such as capping verses, of which he was very fond.' 
Lord John used often to write prologues and epilogues for 
the drawing-room plays which they were accustomed to per- 
form. Space forbids the quotation of these sparkling and 
often humorous verses, but the following instance of his 
ready wit occurred in the drawing-room at Minto, and is 
given on the authority of Mr. George Elliot. At a game 
where everyone was required to write some verses, answer- 
ing the question written on a paper to be handed to him, 
and bringing in a word written on the same, the paper that 
fell to the lot of Lord John contained this question : ' Do you 
admire Sir Robert Peel ? ' and ' soldier ' the word to be 
brought in. His answer was : 

' I ne'er was a soldier of Peel, 
Or ever yet stood at his back ; 
For while he wriggled on like an eel, 
I swam straight ahead like 2, Jack.'' 

Mr. Gladstone states that perhaps the finest retort he 
ever heard in the House of Commons was that of Lord 
John in reply to Sir Francis Burdett. The latter had 
abandoned his Radicalism in old age, and was foolish 
enough to sneer at the ' cant of patriotism.' * I quite agree, 
said Lord John, ' with the honourable baronet that the cant 
of patriotism is a bad thing. But I can tell him a worse — 
the rec3int of patriotism — which I will gladly go along with 



LORD DUFFERIN'S RECOLLECTIONS 363 

him in reprobating whenever he shows me an example 
of it.' 

Lord John Russell once declared that he had no need 
to go far in search of happiness, as he had it at his own 
doors, and this was the impression left on every visitor to 
Pembroke Lodge. Lord Dufferin states that all his recol- 
lections gather around Lord John's domestic life. He 
never possessed a kinder friend or one who was more plea- 
sant in the retirement of his home. Lord Dufferin adds : 
' One of his most charming characteristics was that he was 
so simple, so untheatrical, so genuine, that his existence, 
at least when I knew him, flowed at a very high level of 
thought and feeling, but was unmarked by anything very 
dramatic. His conversation was too delightful, full of 
anecdote ; but then his anecdotes were not like those told by 
the ordinary raconteur^ and were simple reminiscences of his 
own personal experience and intercourse with other distin- 
guished men. Again, his stories were told in such an un- 
pretending way that, though you were delighted with what 
you had heard, you were still more delighted with the speaker 
himself.' 

The closing years of Lord Russell's career were marked 
by settled peace, the consciousness of great tasks worthily 
accomplished, the unfaltering devotion of household love, 
the friendship of the Queen, the confidence of a younger 
race of statesmen, and the respect of the nation. Deputa- 
tions of working men found their way to Pembroke Lodge 
to greet the old leader of the party of progress, and school 
children gathered about him in summer on the lawn, and 
were gladdened by his kindly smile and passing word. In 
good report and in evil report, in days of power and in days of 
weakness, the Countess Russell cheered, helped, and solaced 



364 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

him, and brought not only rare womanly devotion, but 
unusual intellectual gifts to his aid at the critical moments 
of his life, when bearing the strain of public responsi- 
bihty, and in the simple round of common duty. The 
nation may recognise the services of its great men, but can 
never gauge to the full extent the influences which sus- 
tained them. The uplifting associations of a singularly happy 
domestic life must be taken into account in any estimate of 
the forces which shaped Lord John Russell's career. It is 
enough to say — indeed, more cannot with propriety be added 
— that through the political stress and strain of nearly forty 
years Lady Russell proved herself to be a loyal and noble- 
hearted wife. 

There is another subject, which cannot be paraded on 
the printed page, and yet, since religion was the central 
principle of Lord John Russell's life, some allusion to his 
position on the highest of all subjects becomes imperative. 
His religion was thorough; it ran right through his nature. 
It was practical, and revealed itself in deeds which spoke 
louder than words. ' I rest in the faith of Jeremy Taylor,' 
were his words, ' Barrow, Tillotson, Hoadly, Samuel Clarke, 
Middleton, Warburton, and Arnold, without attempting to 
reconcile points of difference between these great men. I 
prefer the simple words of Christ to any dogmatic interpre- 
tation of them.' Dean Stanley, whom he used to call his 
Pope — always playfully adding, ' but not an infalHble one ' 
— declared shortly before Lord Russell's death that ' he was a 
man who was firmly convinced that in Christianity, whether 
as held by the National Church or Nonconformist, there 
was something greater and vaster than each of the particular 
communions professed and advocated, something which 
made it worth while to develop those universal principles 



MR. SPURGEON'S BLESSING 365 

of religion that are common to all who accept in any real 
sense the fundamental truths of Christianity.' 

Mr. Spurgeon, in conversation with the writer of these 
pages, related an incident concerning Lord John which de- 
serves at least passing record, as an illustration of his swift 
appreciation of ability and the reality of his recognition of 
religious equality. Lord John was upwards of sixty at the 
time, and the famous Baptist preacher, though the rage of 
the town, was scarcely more than twenty. The Metropolitan 
Tabernacle had as yet not been built. Mr. Spurgeon was at 
the Surrey Music Hall, and there the great congregation had 
gathered around this youthful master of assemblies. One 
Sunday night, at the close of the service, Lord John Russell 
came into the vestry to speak a kindly word of encourage- 
ment to the young preacher. One of the children of the ex- 
Prime Minister was with him, and before the interview ended 
Lord John asked the Nonconformist minister to give his 
blessing to the child. Mr. Spurgeon never forgot the inci- 
dent, or the bearing of the man who came to him, amid a 
crowd of others, on that Sunday night. 

In opening the new buildings of Cheshunt College in 
187 1, Lord John alluded to the foundress of that seat of 
theological learning. Lady Huntingdon, as a woman who 
was far in advance of her times, since, a century before the 
abolition of University tests, she made it possible to divinity 
students to obtain academical training without binding them- 
selves at the outset to any religious community. 

During the early months of 1878 Lord John's strength 
failed rapidly, and it became more and more apparent that 
the plough was nearing the end of the furrow. His old 
courage and calmness remained to the end. Mr. and Mrs. 
Gladstone called at Pembroke Lodge on April 20, and he 



^66 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

sent down word that he wished to see them. ' I took them to 
him for a few minutes,' relates Lady Russell. ' Happily, he was 
clear in his mind, and said to Mr. Gladstone, " I am sorry you 
are not in the Ministry," and kissed her affectionately, and was 
so cordial to both that they were greatly touched.' He told 
Lady Russell that he had enjoyed his life. ' I have made 
mistakes, but in all I did my object was the public good ! ' 
Then after a pause : ' I have sometimes seemed cold to my 
friends, but it was not in my heart.' A change for the worse 
set in on May i, and the last sands of life were slipping 
quietly through the glass when the Nonconformist deputation 
came on the 9th of that month to present Lord Russell 
with an address of congratulation on the occasion of the 
jubilee of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts.^ 
Lady Russell and her children received the Deputation. Li 
the course of her reply to the address Lady Russell said that 
of all the ' victories won by that great party to which in his 
later as in his earlier years Lord John had been insepar- 
ably attached,' there was none dearer to his memory at that 
moment than that which they had called to remembrance. 
' It was a proud and a sad day,' is the entry in Lady Russell's 
journal. ' We had hoped some time ago that he might per- 
haps see the Deputation for a moment in his room, but he 
was too ill for that to be possible.' 

A few days later, there appeared in the columns of 
'Punch' some commemorative verses entitled 'A Golden 

* Amongst those who assembled in the drawing-room of Pembroke 
Lodge on that historic occasion were Mr. Henry Richard, M. P. , Mr. 
Samuel Morley, M.P., Mr. Edward Baines, Sir Charles Reed, Mr. 
Carvell Williams, M.P., who came on behalf of the Protestant Dissent- 
ing Deputies. The Congregationalists were represented by such men 
as the Rev. Baldwin Brown and the Rev. Guinness Rogers ; the Baptists 
by Dr. Underbill ; the Presbyterians by Dr. McEwan ; and the Uni 
tarians by Mr. Middleton Aspland. 



VICTORIOUS PEACE 367 

Wedding.' They expressed the feeHng that was uppermost 
in the heart of the nation, and two or three verses may here 
be recorded : — 

The Golden Wedding of Lord John and Liberty his love — 
'Twixt the Russells' House and Liberty, 'twas ever hand and glove^ 
His love in those dark ages, he has lived through with his bride. 
To look back on them from the sunset of his quiet eventide. 

His love when he that loved her and sought her for his own 

Must do more than suit and service, must do battle, trumpet blown, 

Must slay the fiery dragons that guarded every gate 

On the roads by which men travelled for work of Church and State. 

Now time brings its revenges, and all are loud to own 
How beautiful a bride she was, how fond, how faithful shown ; 
But she knows the man who loved her when lovers were but few. 
And she hails this golden wedding — fifty years of tried and true. 

Look and listen, my Lord Russell : 'tis your golden wedding-day ; 
We may not press your brave old hand, but you hear what we've to say. 
A blessing on the bridal that has known its fifty years, 
But never known its fallings-out, delusions, doubt, or fears. 

The end came softly. ' I fall back on the faith of my 
childhood,' were the words he uttered to Dr. Anderson. 
The closing scene is thus recorded in Mr. Rollo Russell's 
journal: 'May 28 [1878]. — He was better this morning, 
though still in a very weak state. He spoke more distinctly, 
called me by my name, and said something which I could 
not understand. He did not seem to be suffering . . . and 
has, all through his long illness, been cheerful to a degree 
that surprises everybody about him, not complaining of any- 
thing, but seeming to feel that he was being well cared for. 
About midday he became worse . . . but bore it all calmly. 
My mother was with him continually. . . . Towards ten he 
was much worse, and in a few minutes, while my mother 
was holding his hand, he breathed out gently the remainder 
of life,' Westminster Abbey, was offered as a place of burial, 



368 LORD JOHN RUSSELL 

but, in accordance with his own expressed wish, Lord John 
Russell was gathered to his fathers at Chenies. The Queen's 
sympathy and her sense of loss were expressed in the follow- 
ing letter : — 

' Balmoral : May 30, 1878. 

' Dear Lady Russell, — It was only yesterday afternoon 
that I heard through the papers that your dear husband had 
left this world of sorrows and trials peacefully and full of 
years the night before, or I would have telegraphed and 
written sooner. You will believe that I truly regret an old 
friend of forty years' standing, and whose personal kindness 
in trying and anxious times I shall ever remember. " Lord 
John," as I knew him best, was one of my first and most dis- 
tinguished Ministers, and his departure recalls many event- 
ful times. 

' To you, dear Lady Russell, who were ever one of the 

most devoted of wives, this must be a terrible blow, though 

you must have for some time been prepared for it. But one 

is never prepared for the blow when it comes, and you have 

had such trials and sorrows of late years that I most truly 

sympathise with you. Your dear and devoted daughter 

will, I know, be the greatest possible comfort to you, and I 

trust that your grandsons will grow up to be all you could 

wish. 

' Believe me always, yours affectionately, 

'Victoria R. and I,' 

Lord Shaftesbury wrote in his journal some words about 
Lord Russell which speak for themselves. After recording 
that he had reached the ripe age of eighty-six, and that he 
had been a conspicuous man for more than half a century, 
he added that to have ' begun with disapprobation, to have 



HIS GREAT QUALITIES 369 

fought through many difficulties, to have announced, and 
acted on, principles new to the day in which he lived, to 
have filled many important offices, to have made many 
speeches, and written many books, and in his whole course 
to have done much with credit, and nothing with dishonour, 
and so to have sustained and advanced his reputation to the 
very end, is a mighty commendation.' 

When some one told Sir Stafford Northcote that Lord 
John was dead, the tidings were accompanied by the trite 
but sympathetic comment, ' Poor Lord Russell ! ' ' Why 
do you call him poor ? ' was the quick retort. ' Lord 
Russell had the chance of doing a great work and — he 
did it.' 

Lord John was not faultless, and most assuredly he was 
not infalHble. He made mistakes, and sometimes was in- 
clined to pay too little heed to the claims of others, and 
not to weigh with sufficient care the force of his own im- 
petuous words. The taunt of ' finality ' has seldom been 
less deserved. In most directions he kept an open mind, 
and seems, like Coleridge, to have believed that an error is 
sometimes the shadow of a great truth yet behind the 
horizon. Mr. Gladstone asserts that his old chief was 
always ready to stand in the post of difficulty, and possessed 
an inexhaustible sympathy with human suffering. 

It is at least certain that Lord John Russell served Eng- 
land — the country whose freedom, he once declared, he 
' worshipped ' — with unwearied devotion, with a high sense of 
honour, with a courage which never faltered, with an integrity 
which has never been impeached. He followed duty to the 
utmost verge of life, and— full himself of moral susceptibility 
— he reverenced the conscience of every man. 

B B 



INDEX 



ABE 

Abercromby, Mr., 103 

Aberdeen, Lord, Foreign Secretary in 
Peel's Cabinet, 125 ; and the repeal of 
the Corn Laws, 132 ; forms the Coali- 
tion Government, 203, 206 ; early 
political life and characteristics, 209 ; 
and the Secret Memorandum, 216, 
225 ; friendly relations with the 
Emperor Nicholas, 217, 233 ; belief 
in the peaceful intentions of Russia, 
225, 231 ; vacillation on the eve of the 
Crimean War, 229, 234 ; public pre- 
judice against him, 233 ; home policy, 
240 ; fall of his Government, 257 ; 
relations with Lord John Russell, 346, 

347. 

Adelaide, Queen, 82, 83 

' Adullamites,' 329 

Afghanistan, invasion of, 121, 170 

'Alabama' Case, the, 312-319 

Albert, Prince, and Lord Palmerston, 
177 ; letter on the defeat of the Turks 
at Sinope, 232 ; and Count Bud's 
scheme, 261 ; letter on the position of 
affairs in the Crimea, 263 ; death, and 
cfiaracteristics, 308, 309 ; last official 
act, 310 

Alexander IL, 259, 321 

Alien Acts, the, 27 

All the Talents, Ministry of, 63, 64 

Alma, the battle of, 246 

Althorp, Lord, 48, 56, 67, 79 ; and his 
part in carrying the Reform Bill, 81, 
82, 87 ; characteristics. Si, 82 ; 88, 
92 ; introduces the Poor Law Amend- 
ment Act (Ireland), 93 ; 96 ; and the 
Coercion Act, 96 ; succeeds to the 
Peerage ^s Earl Spencer, 100. See 
also Spencer, Lord 

Amberley, Viscount, 356 

America, war between England and, 21, 
22 ; Napoleon's opinion of the war, 
31 ; and the 'Trent' affair, 310-312 ; 
Civil War, 310, 313 ; and the 
' Alabama' Case, 312-319 



BIS 

Anti-Corn-Law League, its founding' 

121 ; 126, 131 
Argyll,_ Duke of, 295, 327 
Armenia, massacres in, 269, 353 
Arms Bill, 146, 147 ; of 1847, 154 
Auckland, Lord, 96 

Austria, revolt in Vienna of 1848, 171 ; 
and the retention of Lombardy and 
Venice, 172, 300 ; and the Vienna 
Note, 227 ; and the Crimean War, 
243 ; proposed alliance with England 
and France to defend the integrity of 
Turkey, 261 ; her power in Italy, 
300 ; campaign against France and 
Italy, and battles of Magenta and 
Solferino, 302, 303 ; and the peace of 
Villafranca, 303 



Bagehot, Walter, 86, 323 

Ballot, the : Grote's attempts to introduce 
a bill, 90, III 

Bathurst, Lord, 50 

Bedford, fourth Duke of, his ' Corre- 
spondence' edited by Lord John Russell, 
278 _ 

— Francis, fifth Duke of, 3 

— sixth Duke of, father of Lord John 
Russell, 3 ; opinion of English Uni- 
versities, II, 16 ; encouragement given 
to Lord John in political training, 14, 
36 ; characteristics, 16 ; and Lord 
John's leadership of the Opposition, 
103 ; and Joseph Lancaster, 115 

— seventh Duke of, 202 

— first Earl of, 2 

Belgium : the question of its indepen- 
dence, 172, 340, 341 

Bentinck, Lord George, 138, 140, 141, 
150, 160, 201 

Bessborough, Lord, 146, 151 

Birmingham, unrepresented in the 
House of Commons, 23, 38, 51, 60, 71 ; 
great meeting on the Reform question 
at, 79 ; 296 

Bismarck, Count, 321-323 

B B 2 



372 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



BLA 

Blandford, Lord, 59 

Blessington, Lady, 42 

Blomfield, Bishop, 115 

Bradlaugh, Mr., 332 

Bribery and corruption 1 efore the era of 
Reform, 23, 61 ; Lord John Russell's 
resolutions for the discovery and 
punishment of, 43 

Bridgeman, Mr. George (afterwards 
Earl of Bradford), 16, 18, 20 

Bright, John, on the influences at work 
in the repeal of the Corn Laws, 130, 
131 ; on disaffection in Ireland, and 
the Arms Bill, 155, 156, 202, 206, 208, 
2S7 ; relations with Lord John Rus- 
sell, 294, 329 ; and the ' Adullamites,' 

329 
Brougham, Lord, 56, 67 ; and the 

Reform Bill cry, 74 ; speech on the 

second Reform Bill, 78 ; 83 ; opinion 

of Lord John Russell, no 
Buccleuch, Duke of, 134, 136 
Bulgaria, massacres in, 269, 352 
Bulwer, Sir H., 174 
Buol, Count, 261, 263 
Burdett, Sir Francis, 25, 26 ; his motion 

for universal suffrage, 35 ; 70 
Buxton, Thomas Fowell, 89 
Byng, Hon, Georgiana, 3 



Camelford, 40 

Campbell, Lord, 157 

Canada : the rebellion, no ; Earl of 

Durham appointed Governor-General, 

no 
Canning, Mr., 43 ; his Ministry, 50 ; 

death, 51 
Capital crimes, 107 
Card well, Mr., 290 
Carlisle, Earl of, 96 
Carlyle, Thomas, and the Chartists, 166, 

167; 358, 362 
Caroline, Queen, proceedings against, 

41 . 

Cartwnght, Dr., 5 

Cartwright, Major, 5, 25, 26, 38, 39 

Cassiobury, 36, 112 

Castlereagh, Lord, 21, 40, 63 

Catholics : political restrictions against 
them, 48 ; agitation for Emancipation, 
581 59 ; passing of the Emancipation 
Bill, 59 ; and the decree of Pius IX., 
182-184 ; and the Durham Letter, 
184-188 

Cato Street Conspiracy, 40 

' Cave of AduUam,' 329 

Cavour, Count, 300, 301, 302 

Chadwick, Sir Edwin, 162 

Chartist movement, 163 ; and Feargus 
O'Connor, 165-168 ; and its literature, 
166 

Chatham, Lord, on borough representa- 
tion, 24, 25 ; 26 

Chelsea Hospital, 6s 



Die 

Cheshunt College, 365 

China, opium war against, 121 

Church of England, the, and its adoption 
of Romish practices, 1S5, 186 

Clare, Lord, 6, 7 

Clarendon, Lord, 119, 141 ; his Vice- 
royalty of Ireland, 153 ; 182, 196 ; at 
the Foreign Office, 221, 224, 231 ; on 
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, 260 ; 
Count Buol's proposals, 262, 263 ; 327 

Clive, Mr. Robert, 16, 20 

Clubs for the advancement of Reform, 
26 

Cobbett, William, 26, 64 

Cobden, Richard, and the repeal of the 
Corn Laws, 131, 132, 134; and Wel- 
lington, 136; 202, 206, 208, 287; 
relations with Lord John Russell, 294 ; 
negotiates the Commercial Treaty 
with France, 295, 296 ; death, 325 

Coercion Act : Lord Grey proposes its 
renewal, 96 ; Lord John Russell's 
speech, 97, 98 ; and O'Connell, 98, 
99 ; Peel's proposal for its renewal, 
140 

Conspiracy Bill, the, 289, 290 
■ Conyngham, Marquis of, 96 

Corn Laws, 121 ; John Bright on the 
influences working for their repeal, 
130, 131 ; of 1670 reproduced in 1815, 
131 n. ; Sir Robert Peel proposes their 
gradual repeal, 138 ; bill for repeal 
passes both Houses, 139 ; total repeal 
carried by Russell, 145 

Cranworth, Lord, 327 

Crime, excessive penalties for, 24 

Crimean War : causes, 213-235 ; out- 
break,' 243, 246 ; Alma, 246 ; Bala- 
clava and Inkerman, 247 ; siege of 
Sebastopol, 246, 247 ; privation and 
pestilence amongst the Allies, 248, 252 ; 
Roebuck's motion in the House of 
Commons to inquire into the con- 
dition of the army before Sebastopol, 
and Lord John Russell's speech on the 
question, 254-257 ; failure of Vienna 
Conference and renewal of the cam- 
paign, 267 ; fall of Sebastopol, 268 ; 
losses of Russia, and of the Allies, 268 ; 
treaty of Paris, 268 

Croker, J. W., 80, 139 



Dalling, Lord, iSo 

Denmark and the Schleswig-Holstein 
Question, 322, 323^ 

Derby, Lord, Administration of, 199, 200, 
202 ; 206 ; fails to form a Ministry on 
the resignation of Lord Aberdeen, 
258; succeeds to the Premiership on 
the resignation of Lord Palmerston, 
290 ; resignation, 293 

Devonshire, Duke of, 49 

Dickens, Charles, his tribute" to Lord 
Russell, 354 



INDEX 



373 



DIS 

Disraeli, Benjamin, and the 'poisoned 
chalice,' 135 ; attacks Peel on the 
proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, 
138 ; and the Coercion Bill, 140, 141, 
160; and 'Sybil,' 166; and the 
dismissal of Lord Palmerston, 180, 
181 ; on Lord John Russell's position 
after the issue of the Durham Letter, 
188; his Budget of 1852, 199, 210; 
leadership of the Conservative party, 
201 ; resolution condemning the 
Palmerston Ministry, 264 ; on the ex- 
clusion of Lord John from Lord Grey's 
Cabinet, 273, 290 ; his Reform Bill, 
291, 292 ; on the Prince Consort, 309 ; 
his 'diabolical cleverness,' 333 «. 

Dissenters. See Nonconformists 

' Don Carlos,' by Lord John Russell, 279 

'Don Pacifico ' affair, the, 175 

Dufferin, Lord, 327, 363 

Duffy, Sir Gavan, on Irish landowners, 
149 

Duhamel, General, his scheme for the 
acquisition of India by Russia, 218 

Duncannon, Lord, 67, 91, 92 ; appointed 
Home Secretary, 99. See also Bess- 
borough, Lord 

Dunkellin, Lord, 329, 331 

Durazzo, Madame, 37 

Durham, Lord, his advanced opinions 
and popularity with the Radicals, 66, 
164 ; and the preparation of the Re- 
form Bill, 67, 68 ; and the scene in the 
House of Commons during the intro- 
duction of the bill, 69, 89 ; resigns 
ofifice, 92 ; appointed Governor-General 
of Canada, no ; defended by Lord 
John Russell, iii ; popularity, 164 

Durham Letter, the, 184-189, 191 

East India Company, 89, 288, 289 

East Retford, 51 

Ebrington, Lord, 75 ; moves a vote of 
confidence in Lord Grey's Government, 
79 ; moves a second vote of confidence, 

83 ; 9I) 92 

Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 191-193 

' Edinburgh Letter,' the, 133 

Edinburgh Speculative Society, 13 

— University, Lord John Russell at, 11- 
14 ; and the influence of Professors 
Dugald Stewart and John Playfair, 
12 ; and the Speculative Society, 13 

Education at the beginning of the cen- 
tury, 24 ; Roebuck's scheme, 89 ; Bill 
of 1839, ii4j 115 ; measure for provid- 
ing competent teachers for elementary 
schools, 159 ; Lord John Russell's 
scheme of National Education, 284 ; 
Mr. Forster's measure, 285 

Egypt, war between Turkey and, 119 

Elcho, Lord, 329 

Eldon, Lord, 40, 50 ; and the proposed 
repeal of the Test and Corporation 
Acts, 57, 58 ; 63 



GIB 

Elections, Parliamentary', cost of, 23 
Elliot, Hon. George, 195, 279, 347, 362 
Encumbered Estates Act, 157 
Erskine, Lord, 25 
' Essay on the History of the English 

Government and Constitution,' by 

Lord John Russell, 274, 275 



Factory Act, 159 

Famine, Irish, 130, 146, 148, 149 

Farnborough, Lord, 107 

Fielden, Mr., 159 

Fitzpatrick, General, 20 

Flood, Mr., and Reform, 77, and note 

Fonblanque, Albany, 47, 84, 196, 197 

Forster, W. E., and the Irish famine, 
149 ; tribute to Lord John Russell for 
his work in the cause of education, 285 ; 

327 

Fortescue, Mr. Chichester, Lord John 
Russell's ' Letters on the State of 
Ireland ' to, 280, 342 

Fox, Charles James, his influence on 
Lord John Russell, 8 ; on Parliamen- 
tary Representation, 25 ; and the Test 
and Corporation Acts, 54, 55 ; Russell's 
Biography of him, 98, 272, 277 

France : Napoleon's intention to create 
a new aristocracy, 31 ; and England's 
alliance, 120; overthrow and flight of 
Louis Philippe, 163, 171 ; and the 
Spanish marriages, 171 ; Revolution 
of 1848, 171 ; and the ' Don Pacifico ' 
affair, 175 ; and the Crimean War, 
225, 229 ; the Orsini Conspiracy, 289, 
290 ; Commercial Treaty with England, 
295, 296 ; campaign with Italy, against 
Austria, 302, 303 ; annexation of Savoy, 

305 
Free Trade : the question coming to the 

front, 121 ; and Tory opposition, 132 ; 

conversion of Peel, 137, 138 ; and the 

Commercial Treaty with France, 296 
French Revolution, its influence on the 

English people, 24, 36 
Friends of the People, Society of the, 25, 

63 
Froude, Mr., on the improvements 

effected by the Reform Bill, 86, 87 



' Gagging Acts, the, 39, 40 
Garibaldi, General, 300 ; entry into 
Naples, 306 ; visit to Pembroke Lodge, 

307 , 
Gascoigne, General, 73 
Gatton, 23 
Gavazzi, Father, 186 
George III., his madness and blindness, 

27 ; and Catholic Emancipation, 59 
George IV. and Queen Caroline, 41 ; 

and Catholic Emancipation. 59 ; 

death, 60, 64 
Gibson, Milner, 141, 208, 287, 295 



374 



LORD TORN RUSSELL 



GLA 

Gladstone, Mr., on the Colonial policy 
of the Alel bourne Government, 117 ; 
Colonial Secretary, 136 ; and Sir 
Robert Peel, 176 ; his attack on 
Disraeli's Budget, 199 ; and Disraeli's 
claim to lead the Conservative party, 
201 and 7iote ; and Lord John Russell's 
claim to the Premiership on the fall of 
the Derby Government, 202 ; takes 
office under Lord Aberdeen, 207 ; first 
Budget, 210 ; and the income tax, 
240 ; resigns office, 258 ; 290 ; Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer (1859), 295 ; 
tribute to Russell on his accession to 
the Peerage, 297, 298 ; unseated at 
Oxford, 325 ; Chancellor of the 
Exchequer under Lord Russell, 327 ; 
. introduces a Reform Bill, 328 ; tribute 
to Lord Russell, 330 ; ovation at 
Carlton House Terrace, 332 ; and the 
Irish Question, 342 ; 363, 366 

Glenelg, Lord, 112 

Goderich, Lord, 52, 93 

Gordon, Lady Georgiana, 3 

Gore, Hon. Charles, 348 

Gorham Case, the, 182 

Gortschakoff, Prince, 261, 267 

Goschen, Mr., 327 

Graham, Sir James, 67 ; withdraws from 
Lord Grey's Ministry, 95 ; accuses 
Lord John Russell of encouraging 
sedition, 119; Home Secretaiy under 
Peel, 125 ; declines the Governor- 
Generalship of India, 141 ; 202, 207, 
232, 254, 258, 290 

Grampound, 27, 40, 41, ; disfranchised, 

43 

Granville, Lord, appointed Foreign 
Secretary, 182; on Lord John Russell's 
speech in defence of his late colleagues, 
266 ; fails to form a Ministry on the 
defeat of Lord Derby, 293 ; becomes 
President of the Council, 295 

Great Exhibition of 1851, 193, 200, 234, 
308 

Greece and the ' Don Pacifico ' affair, 175 

Greenock, Lord John Russell's speech 
on the prospects of war, at, 227 

Greville, Charles, comments of, 61, 69, 
72, 73, 102, 130, 180, 207, 257, 286 

Grey, (Charles, second) Lord, 15, 25 ; 
and Lord John Russell's efforts on 
behalf of liberty, 58, 61 ; forms an 
Administration, 62, 65 ; early labours 
in the cause of Reform, 63, 64 ; 
characteristics, 65 ; announcement in 
the House of Lords with regard to the 
introduction of the first Reform Bill, 
68 ; speech on the second Reform Bill, 
76-78 ; resigns office, but resumes 
power on the inability of the Duke of 
Wellington to form a Ministry, 83 ; 
9? ; changes In his Cabinet, 96 ; 
proposes the renewal of the Coercion 
Act, 96 ; resigns the Premiership, 99 



HOU 

Grey (Henry, third). Lord, 134 ; Secre- 
tary to the Colonies under Lord John 
Russell, 141 

Grey, Sir George, Home Secretary 
under Lord John Russell, 141 ; and 
Irish crime, 153 ; appointed Colonial 
Secretary, 245 ; 295 ; Home Secretary, 
3.27 

Grillion's Club, 27, 28 

Grosvenor, Earl, 329, 330 

Grote, George, 90, no, in, 320 



Habeas Corpus Act, suspension of, 33, 
34 

Hampden, Dr., and the see of Hereford, 
161 

Hampden Clubs, 26 

Harcourt, Archbishop, on religious 
tests, 57 

Harding, Sir John, and the ' Alabama' 
Case, 315-317 

Hardinge, Sir Henrj- (afterwards Vis- 
count), 82, 249 

Hartington, Lord, 292, 327 

Henley, Mr., 291 

Herbert of Lea, Lord, 232 

Herbert, Sidney, 207, 244, 254, 258 

Herschel, Sir John, 355 

Hobhonse, Sir J. C, 70, 141 

Holland, Lord, visitof Lord John Russell 
to the Peninsula with/g-ti ; 30, 53, 57, 
119; and the Life of Charles James 
Fox, 276 

Holland House, 8, 15, 143 

Holy Places in Palestine, dispute con- 
cerning, 213, 218 

Horsman, Mr., 329 

Houghton, Lord, 294 

House of Commons, abuses and defects 
in representation before the era of Re- 
form, 22, 23 ; presentation of the peti- 
tion of the Friends of the People, 25, 
26 ; suspension of the Habeas Corpus 
Act, 33, 34 ; Sir Francis Burdett's 
motion for universal suffrage, and 
Lord John Russell's speech, 35 ; and 
the ' Gagging Acts,' 39, 40 ; Lord 
John's first resolutions in favour of 
Reform, 40 ; Lord John proposes an 
addition of 100 members, 43 ; intro- 
duction and second reading of the first 
Reform Bill, 69-73 ; dissolut'on, 74 ; 
first Reform Bill, 69-73 : second Re- 
form Bill, 75, 76 ; third Reform Bill, 
81 ; the first Reformed Parliament, 
88 ; number of Protectionists in 1847, 
160 

House of Lords, and the proposed 
enfranchisement of Manchester, 52 ; 
and the Test and Corporation Acts, 56, 
57 ; effect of the Duke of Wellington's 
declaration against Reform, 61 ; its 
rejection of Reform, 78 ; urged by 
William IV. to withdraw opp.isition to 



INDEX 



375 



HOW 

the Reform Bill, 84 ; passing, of the 
Reform Bill, 84 ; and the Jewish 
Disabilities Bill, ig8, 291 

Howick, Lord, 134 

Hume, Joseph, 72, 80, 90, 121 

Hunt, Mr. Ward, 330 

— ' Orator,' 26 

Huskisson, Mr., 56 

Hyde Park, Reform demonstration in, 



Indemnity Bill for Diss'inters, 51 

India, Napoleon's prophecy as to the 
acquisition by Russia of, 31 ; Duhamel's 
scheme for its aqquisition by Russia, 
218; Mutiny in, 288 

India Bills, 210, 290 

Inkerman, battle of, 247 

Ireland : condition of affairs^ on the 
accession of the Duke of Wellington to 
power, 53 ; agitation for Catholic 
Emancipation, 58, 59 ; and O'Connell, 
90 ; Lord John Russell's visit in 1833, 
91, 92 ; Poor Law Amendment Act, 
93, 107 ; Mr. Littleton's Tithe Bill, 93 ; 
Tithe Bill of 1835, 105, 107 ; Municipal 
Bill, 105, 112 ; passing of the Tithe 
Bill, 112 ; Maynooth grant, 127, 128 ; 
potato famine, 130, 146, 148, 149 ; 
Peel's proposal for renewal of Coercion 
Act, 140 ; proposed renewal of Arms 
Bill, 147, 148 ; revolt of Young Ireland 
against O'Connell, 147 ; measures to 
relieve distress, 150-152 ; crime, 153, 
154 ; Arms Bill (1847), 154 ; Treason 
Felony Act, 157 ; Encumbered Estates 
Act, 157 ; emigration, 158 

Irish Church : Mr. Ward's motion, 95 ; 
Peel's accusation against Lord John 
Russell, 97 ; Lord John's motion of 
April 1835, 103, 104 

Italy : Lord John Russell's impressions, 
37 ; Lord John's second visit, 48, 49 ; 
and the retention by Austria of Lom- 
bardy and Venice, 172, 300 ; accession 
of Victor Emmanuel II. to the throne 
of Sardinia, 301 ; campaign, with 
France, against Austria, 302, 303 ; the 
Peace of Villafranca, 303 ; intervention 
of England, 304 ; annexation of Savoy 
by France, 305 ; entry of Garibaldi 
into Naples, and proclamation of 
Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy, 
306 



Jamaica Bill, the, 114 

Jews : exclusion from Parliament, 57 ; 
rejection in the Lords of bill for their 
relief, 89, 198, 210; passing of the bill 
in 1858, ago, 291 

Jones, Gale, 13 



MAL 

Keble, Dr., 183 

Kennington Common, Chartist demon. 

stration on, 166-168 
King, Mr. Locke, 193 
Kinglake, Mr., 266, 353 
Kingsley, Charles, his ' Alton Locke ' 

166 
Kossuth, Louis, his visit to England, 179 



Labouchere, Mr. (afterwards Lord 

Taunton), 116, 147 
Lamb ton, Mr. (father of the first Earl of 

Durham), 25 
Lancashire Cotton Famine, 319 
Lancaster, Joseph, 115 and note, 281, 

282 
Lansdowne, Lord, 52, 141, 202, 205, 240, 

251, 258 
Lascelles, Mr., 23 
Lecky, Mr. W. E. H., his reminiscences 

of Earl Russell, 335-339 
Leech, John, 192, 241 
Leeds, unrepresented in the House of 

Commons, 23, 38, 60, 71 ; 296 
' Letters written for the Post, and not 

for the Press,' question of authorship 

of, 279, 280 
Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, 210, 226, 

238 ; Chancellor of the Exchequer in 

Lord Palmerston's Ministry, 258 ; on . 

Lord John Russell's speech announc- 
ing his resignation (1855), 265 ; 295 
Lhuys, M. Drouyn de, 261, 262 
Lincoln, President, assassination of, 325 
Lister, Sir Villiers, 348 
Littleton, Mr. (afterwards Lord Hather- 

ton), and the Irish Title Bill, 93 ; and 

the Coercion Act, 97 
Liverpool, Lord, 21, 33, 50, 63 
Llandaff, Bishop of, and the repeal of 

the Test and Corporation Acts, 57 
London University, 106, 107 ; proposed 

enfranchisement of, 296 
Londonderry, Marquis of, 79 
Louis Philippe, overthrow and flight of, 

163, 171 ; and the Spanish marriages, 

171 
Lowe, Mr. ,327, 329, 332 
Luddites, riots of the, 32 
Lyndhurst, Lord, and Jewish Lord 

Chancellors, 291 
Lyons, Sir Edmund, 252 
Lytton, Sir Edward Bulwer, 208, 265 



Macaulav, Lord, 141 ; urges Lord John 
Russell to take office in the Coalition 
Ministry, 204 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 25, 39, 53 

Magenta, battle of, 303 

Malmesbury, Lord, 137 

Maltby, Dr., Bishop of Durham, and 
Lord John Russell's ' Durham Letter,' 



376 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



MAN 

Manchester, unrepresented in the House 
of Commons, 23, 38,_ 51, 60, 71 ; 126, 
155 ; creation of bishopric of, 160 ; 
296 

Martineau, Harriet, 129 

Maule, Fox, 141 

Maynooth College, 127-130 

Mazzini, 300 

McCarthy, Mr. Justin, on the attitude 
of the Catholics towards Lord John 
Russell, 188 

Melbourne, Lord, becomes Prime Min- 
ister, 99 ; dismissed by William IV., 
100, Toi ; again Prime Minister, 104 ; 
Queen Victoria's regard for him, 108, 
109 ; characteristics, 108, 170 ; opinion 
of the ballot, 109 ; resigns, but is 
recalled to power, 114 ; his recog- 
nition of Russell's influence as leader 
in the Commons, 120 ; blunders of his 
Government, 122 ; defeat of his 
Government, 123, 144 

Melville, Lord, 8 

' Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe from 
the Peace of L^trecht,' bj- Lord John 
Russell, 275 

Memorandum, Secret, 216, 225 

Menschikoflf, Prince, 223, 224 

Metternich, 171, 300 

Miall, Edward, 242 

Militia Bill, the, 194, 195 

Milton, Lord, 23 

Mitchelj John, 157, 158 

Moldavia and Wallachia, occupation bj- 
Russia of, 224, 229, 259 

Monson, Lord, 23 

Moore, Thomas, his ' Remonstrance,' 
34 ; accompanies Lord John Russell 
to the Continent, 36 ; extracts from 
his journal, 37 ; 39, 41 ; anxiety as to 
Lord John's politics, 52 ; on Lord 
John's success with his motion for the 
repeal of the Test and Corporation 
Acts, 58; and Lardner's Encyclopaedia, 
91 ; Russell's ' Memoirs and Corre- 
spondence' of Moore, 204, 272, 278 

Morpeth, Lord, 141 

Municipal Reform Act, 90, 104 



Napoleon L, Lord Russell's boyish 
hatred_ of, 9 ; Lord John's interview 
with him at Elba, 28-31 ; his descrip- 
tion of Wellington, 30 ; opinions on 
European politics, &c., 29-31 ; and 
Talma, 37 

Napoleon HI., 167; and the Con^ cfHia^ 
of 1851, 179 ; and the fear of his invad- 
ing England, 194 ; and the custody of 
the Holy Places, 218 ; his alliance 
with England during the Crimean 
War, 262; visit to England (1855), 
267 ; interview with Count Cavour, 
302 ; designs with regard to Italy, 303, 
304 ; and the Peace of Villafranca, 303 



PAL 

Navigation Acts, 197 

Nesselrode, Count, 214, 215 

New Zealand becomes part of the British 
dominions, 117, igg 

Newcastle, Duke of, 207, 232 ; unpopu- 
larityas Secretary for War, 244, 249, 
250 ; incapacity as War Minister, 245 

Newman, Dr., 161, 182 

Nicholas, Emperor, his ambitious pro- 
jects, 213, 214 ; visit to England in 
1844 and the Secret Memorandum, 215, 
216 ; friendship with Lord Aberdeen, 
217; letter to Queen Victoria, 230; 
'Generals Janvier et F^vrier,' 259; 
death, 259 

Nightingale, Miss Florence, 250 

Nonconformists : the Indemnity Bill, 51 ; 
agitation for repeal of Test and Cor- 
poration Acts and their repeal moved 
and carried by Lord John Russell, 
53-57 ; the Marriage Bill and Regis- 
tration Act, 106 ; and the struggle for 
civil and religious liberty, 184 : depu- 
tation to Lord Russell, 366 

Normanby, Lord, 116, 179, i8o 

Northcote, Sir Stafford, 369 

Nottingham Castle, 79 

' Nun of Arrouca, The,' 278 

O'Brien, Smith, 140, 157, 158 

O'Connell, Daniel, 53 ; his election for 
Clare, 58 ; 90, 92 ; on the re\enues of 
the Irish Church, 97 ; and the Coercion 
Bill, 97, 99, 140 ; 146 ; and Lord John 
Russell, 147 ; and the potato famine, 
149; 15S 

O'Connor, Feargus, 165-168 

Old Sarum, 23, 71 

Oltenitza, battle of, 230 

Omar Pacha, 230 

Opium war, the, 121 

Orloff, Count, 214 

Orsini conspiracy, the, 289, 290 

Oxford Movement, the, 161, 182-186, 189 



Palmerston, Lord, 21, 56, 119 ; and the 
•despatch to Metternich, 120; Foreign 
Secretary under Lord John Russell, 
141 ; compared with Russell, 144 ; 
early official life and politics, 169 ; his 
independent action, 169, 174, 175, 177 ; 
his despatch to France on the Spanish 
marriages, 171 ; foreign policy, 173, 
174 ; despatch to Sir H. Bulwer at 
Madrid, 174 ; and the ' Don Pacifico' 
affair, 175 ; popularity, 177 ; and the 
Queen's instructions, 178 ; and the 
Kossuth incident, 179 ; and the Cojtp 
d' Etat in Paris (1851), 179 ; dismissed 
from the Foreign Office, 180 ; declines 
the Irish Vicero^-alty, 181 ; his amend- 
ment on the Militia Bill, 195 ; offered 
a seat in Lord Derby's Cabinet, 201 ; 
Home Secretary under Lord Aberdeen, 
207 ; urges the despatch of the fleet to 



1 



INDEX 



177 



PAN 

the Bosphorus, 225 ; resignation, and 
its withdrawal, 237, 238 ; succeeds 
Lord Aberdeen as Prime Minister, 
258; and Count Buol's proposals, 262, 
263 ; defeat on the ' Arrow ' question 
and return to power after the General 
Election, 287 ; defeat and resignation 
on the Conspiracy Bill, 290 ; renewal 
of friendly relations with Russell, 293 ; 
forms a Ministry on the defeat of Lord 
Derby, 293, 295 ; indifference to 
Reform, 296 ; on Cabinet opinions, 
323;_death,_ 325; Lord Lyttelton's 
opinion of him, 326 
Panmure, Lord, 243, 258 
Papal aggression, and the decree of 
Pius IX., 182-184 ; and the Durham 
Letter, 184-188 
Paris, Treaty of, 268 
Parliamentary representation before the 

era of Reform, 22, 23 
Parnell, Sir H., 62 
' Partington, Dame,' and Sydney Smith's 

speech on Reform, 80 
' Peace with honour,' 227, 349 
Peel, Lady Georgiana, 357 
Peel, Sir Robert, 21, 50 ; leader of the 
House of Commons under the Duke of 
Wellington, 52 ; opposes the repeal of 
the Test and Corporation Acts, 56 ; 
and Catholic Emancipation, 58 ; and 
the first Reform Bill, 69, 70, 73, 76, 
83 ; Prime Minister, 102 ; resigna- 
tion, 104 ; and the Whig Ladies-in- 
Waiting, 114 ; his motion of want of 
confidence in the Melbourne Adminis- 
tration, 122 ; again Prime Minister, 
123, 124 ; characteristics, 126, 127 ; 
and the grant to Maynoolh College, 
127, 128, 130 ; on the state of Ireland, 
128 ; and the repeal of the Corn Laws, 
131 ; resignation and resumption of 
office, 134, 136 ; proposes gradual 
repeal of Corn Laws, 138, 139 ; defeat 
and resignation on the Coercion Bill, 
140, 155 ; and Lord Palmerston, 170 ; 
death, 176, 177 ; and the Emperor 
Nicholas, 215 
Pelissier, General, 263, 267 
Pembroke Lodge, 307, 351-353, 356, 357 
Penal Code, the, before the era of 

Reform, 24, 48 ; 107 
Peninsular Campaign, its costliness, 22 
Penryn, 40, 51, 52 
People's Charter, the, 165 
Peterloo Massacre, the, 38 
Petty, Lord Henry (afterwards third 

Marquis of Lansdowne), 12 
Pius IX., and his decree of 1850, 182, 

183 
Playfair, Professor John, 12 
Polignac, Prince de, 60, 61 
Polish revolt of 1863, 321 
Poor Law Amendment Act (Ireland), 03, 
107, 151 



ROE 

Poor Law Board, 160 

Poor Laws, 89, 126 

Potato famine, 130, 146, 148, 149 

Prisons, regulation of, 107 

Protestant Operative Association of 

Dublin, 129 
Prussia and the Vienna Note, 227 ; 

and the Crimean War, 243 
Public Health Act, 162 
'Punch,' cartoons, &c.,in, 192, 241, 242, 

307, 367 
Pusey, Dr., 161 and note, 183 



Raglan, Lord, 246, 252, 267 
' Recollections and Suggestions,' publi- 
cation of, 280 
Redistribution of Seats Bill, 330 
Redcliffe, Lord Stratford de : skill in 
diplomacy, and early diplomatic life, 
218-220 ; return to Constantinople, 
220, 221 ; and the second Congress at 
Vienna, 260 
Reform : its earty advocates, 25-27 ; and 
the Society of the Friends of the 
People, 25 ; Lord John Russell's first 
speech on the subject, 35 Sir Francis 
Burdett's motion of 1819, 35 ; Lord 
John brings forward his first resolu- 
tions in the House of Commons, 40 ; 
disfranchisement of Grampound, 43 ; 
Lord John's motion for an addition 
of 100 members to the House of 
Commons, 43 ; resolutions brought 
forward by Lord Blandford, 59 ; rejec- 
tion of Lord John's Bill for enfran- 
chising Manchester, Birmingham, and 
Leeds, 60 ; O'Connell's motion for 
Triennial Parliaments, &c., 6o;declara- 
tion of the Duke of Wellington, 61 ; 
the Committee of Four and the first 
Reform Bill, 67, 68 ; introduction and 
second reading of the first Bill in the 
Commons, 69-73 ; the second Bill, 75- 
78 ; public excitement on the rejection 
of the second Bill by the House of 
Lords, 79, 80 ; the third Bill passes the 
Commons, 81 ; the Bill passes the 
House of Lords, and receives the 
Royal Assent, 84 ; secured by popular 
enthusiasm, 85, 87 ; Lord John's Bill 
of 1852, 196 ; Bill of 1B54, 236, 237, 
239; Disraeli's Bill, 291, 292; Lord 
John's Bill of i860, 296 ; Bill intro- 
duced by Mr. Gladstone, 328 

Regent, Prince, insulted on returning 
from opening Parliament, 32 ; and the 
Peterloo Massacre, 38 

Revolution, French (1848), 171 

Rice, Mr. Spring, 96 

Richmond, Duke of, 89, 95, 124 

Ripon, Lord, 95, 124 

Roden, Lord, 113 

Roebuck, J. A., and education, 89 ; 
moves vote of confidence in the Russell 



378 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



ROG 

Administration, 176 ; his motion to in- 
quire into the condition of the Army 
in the Crimea, 254 

Rogers, Samuel, 123, 276 

Rothschild, Baron, 291 

Russell, Mr. G. W. E., 344 

Russell, John, the first Constable ot 
Corfe Castle, i, 2 

Russell, Sir John, Speaker of the House 
of Commons, 2 

Russell, John, the third, and first Earl 
of Bedford, 2 

Russell, Lord John : ancestry, i, 2 ; 
boyhood and education, 3-9 ; school- 
days at Sunbury and Westminster, 
3-5 ; extracts from journal kept at 
Westminster, 4, 5 ; passion for the 
theatre, 4 ; education under Dr. Cart- 
wright, 5 ; dedicates a manuscript 
book to Pitt, 6 ; schooldays and 
schoolfellows at Woodnesborough, 
6-9 ; writes satirical verses and dra- 
matic prologues, 7, 8 ; opinion on the 
case of Lord Melville, 8 ; influence of 
Mr. Fox upon him, 8 ; at Holland 
House, 8, 336 ; friendship with Sydney 
Smith, 8 ; visit to the English lakes 
and Scotland, 9 ; impressions of Sir 
Walter Scott, 9 ; first visit to the 
House of Lords, 9 ; visit to the Penin- 
sula with Lord and Lady Holland, 
9-1 1 ; political predilections and sym- 
pathy with Spain, 9-1 1 ; goes to 
Edinburgh Universitj% 11 ; impressions 
of Professors Dugald Stewart and 
John Playfair, 12, 13 ; his powers of 
debate at the Edinburgh Speculative 
Society, 13 ; early bias towards Par- 
liamentary Reform, 14 ; second visit 
to Spain, 14, 15 ; first impressions of 
Lord Wellington, 15 ; commands a 
company of the Bedfordshire Militia, 
16 ; third visit to Spain, 16-20 ; on the 
field of Salamanca, 17 ; at Wellington's 
head-quarters, 17 ; his ride to Frenida, 
18 ; dines with a canon at Plasencia, 
19 ; at Talavera and Madrid, 20 ; 
elected member for Tavistock, 20 ; his 
opinion of Lord Liverpool, 21 ; maiden 
speech in Parliament, 27 ; speech on 
the Alien Acts, 27 ; elected a member 
of Grillion's Club, 27 ; his Italian tour 
of 1814-15, 28-31 ; interview with 
Napoleon at Elba, 28-31 ; speeches in 
Parliament against the renewal of war 
with France, against the income-tax 
and the Army Estimates, 32 ; on the 
proposal to suspend the Habeas Cor- 
pus Act, 33, 34 ; proposes to abandon 
politics, 34 ; literary labours and 
travel, 34 ; returned again for Tavis- 
tock at the General Election of 1818, 
34 ; first speech in the House of Com- 
mons on Parliamentary Reform, 35 ; 
growth of his influence in Parliament, 



RUS 

36 ; visit to the Continent with Thomas 
Moore, 36, 37 ; impressions of Italy, 

37 ; brings forward in Parliament his 
first resolutions in favour of Reform, 
40 ; his bill for disfranchising Penryn, 
Camelford, Grampound, and Barnsta- 
ple, 40 ; returned to Parliament for 
Huntingdon, 40 ; and the case of Gram 
pound, 40, 41, 42, 43 ; takes the side of 
Queen Caroline, 41 ; writes ' The 
Nun of Arrouca,' 42 ; taciturnity in 
French society, 42 ; his resolutions for 
the discovery and punishment of 
bribery, &c., 43, 44 ; proposes an 
addition of 100 members to the House 
of Commons, 43 ; increase of his 
political influence, 45, 46 ; unseated in 
Huntingdonshire, and his second visit 
to Italy, 48, 49 ; elected for Bandon 
Bridge, 49 ; on the condition of the 
Tory party on Canning's accession to 
power, 50 ; and restrictions upon 
Dissenters, 51 ; proposal to enfranchise 
Manchester, 51 ; moves the repeal of 
the Test and Corporation Acts, 55-57 ; 
and Catholic Emancipation, 59 ; re- 
jection of his bill for enfranchising 
Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, 
60 ; defeated at Bedford, 60 ; visit to 
Paris, and efforts to save the life of 
Prince de Polignac, 60, 61 ; elected 
for Tavistock, and appointed Paj'- 
master-General, 62 ; prepares the first 
Reform Bill in conjunction with Lord 
Durham and others, 67 ; introduces 
the bill, 69-72 ; moves the second 
reading of the Bill, 73 ; returned to 
Parliament for Devonshire, 75 ; raised 
to Cabinet rank, and introduces second 
Reform Bill, 75 ; reply to vote of 
thanks from Birmingham, 79 ; intro- 
duces the third Reform Bill, 80 ; 
carries the bill to the Lords, 81 ; and 
the Municipal Reform Act, 90, 104 ; 
opposition to Radical measures, 90 ; 
and-the wants of Ireland, 91 ; visit to 
Ireland, 91, 92 ; on Mr. Littleton's 
Irish Tithe Bill, 94, 95 ; ' upsets the 
coach,' 95 ; on Coercion Acts, 97, 98 ; 
allusion to his Biography of Fox, 98 ; 
and the leadership in the House of 
Commons under the first Melbourne 
Ministry, 100, loi ; William IV. 's 
opinion of him, loi ; returned for 
South Devon on Peel's accession to 
power, 102 ; as leader of the Opposi- 
tion, 103 ; and the meeting at Lich- 
field House, 103 ; defeats the Govern- 
ment with his Irish Church motion, 
104 ; marriage, 104, 355 ; appointment 
to the Home Ofiice in the second 
Melbourne Administration, 104 ; de- 
feated in Devonshire, and elected for 
Stroud, 104 ; presented with a testi- 
monial at Bristol, 105 ; and the Dis- 



INDEX 



379 



RUS 

senters' Marriage _ Bill, io6 ; and the 
Tithe Commutation Act, io6, 107 ; 
again returned for Stroud,' 107 ; allu- 
sion to the accession of the Queen, 
108 ; declines to take part in further 
measures of Reform, and is called by 
Radicals ' Finality John,' no ; death of 
his wife, 112 ; Education Bill of 1839, 
114, 115 ; as Colonial Secretary, 116- 
118, 338 ; his appointment of a Chart- 
ist magistrate, iig ; and the Corn 
Laws, 121 ; returned for the City of 
London, 122 ; second marriage, 123 ; 
Wellington's opinion of him, 123 ; his 
opinion of Peel's Administration, 126.; 
supports Peel on the Maynooth ques- 
tion, 129, 130; and the repeal of the 
Corn Laws, 131-134, 139 ; and the 
'Edinburgh Letter,' 133 ; fails to form 
a Ministry on the resignation of Peel, 
i34j 135 j opposes Peel's proposal for 
renewal of Coercion Act, 139, 140 ; 
succeeds Peel as Prime Minister, 141 ; 
address in the City, 142 ; political 
qualities, 143, 145 ; contrasted with 
Palmerston, 144 ; his measure for 
total repeal of Corn Laws, 145 ; and 
sugar duties, 146 ; proposes renewal 
of Irish Arms Bill, 146 ; his Irish 
policy, and anxiety and efforts for 
the improvement of the people, 151, 
152, i56,_ 157, 158, 338, 342 ; and the 
Arms Bill (1847), 154 ; again visits 
Ireland, 1.58 ; education measures, 
159 ; returned again for the City, 160 ; 
his appointment of Dr. Hampden to 
the see of Hereford, 161 ; and the 
Chartist demonstration of 1848, 166, 
168 ; relations with Lord Palmerston, 
170 ; on the political situation in 
Europe after the French Revolution 
of 1848, 171, 172 ; and Palmerston's 
action in the ' Don Pacifico ' affair, 
176 ; tribute to Sir Robert Peel, 177 ; 
dismisses Palmerston from the Foreign 
Office, 180 ; and the breach with 
Palmerston, 181 ; his ' Durham Letter, 
184-191 ; introduces the Ecclesiastical 
Titles Bill, 191 ; resigns the Premier- 
ship, but returns to office on the failure 
of Lord Stanley to form a Ministry, 
193 ; resignation on the vote on the 
Militia Bill, 195 ; his Reform Bill of 
1852, 196 ; defence of Lord Clarendon, 
196 ; edits ' Memoirs and Journal of 
Thomas Moore^' 204 ; accepts Foreign 
Secretaryship m the Aberdeen Ad- 
ministration, 206 ; his vacillation in 
taking office under Lord Aberdeen 
not due to personal motives, 205 ; 
retires from Foreign Office, 210, 
221 ; on the projects of Russia, 218, 
224, 225 ; and the Vienna Note, 227 ; 
speech at Greenock on the prospects 
of war, 227 ; memorandum to the 



RUS 

Cabinet on the eve of the Crimean 
War, 228 ; Reform Bill of 1854, 236, 
239, 241 ; resignation, 241 ; resumes 
his seat in the Cabinet, 242 ; speech in 
the House of Commons on withdraw- 
ing his Reform measure, 242, 243 ; 
proposes a rearrangement of the War 
and Colonial departments, 244, 248, 
251 ; presses Lord Aberdeen to take 
decisive action with regard to the 
Crimean War, 248 ; memorandum on 
the Crimean War, 251 ; proposed 
resignation, 251, 252 ; resignation on 
Roebuck's motion to inquire into the 
condition of the Army in the Crimea, 
and his speech on the question, 254- 
257 ; becomes Colonial Secretary in 
Palmerston's Government, 258 ; pleni- 
potentiary at second Congress of 
Vienna, 259-263 ; consents at Palmer- 
ston's request to remain in the Ministry, 
263 ; explanations in the House of 
Commons regarding the failure of the 
Vienna Conference, 264, 265 ; an- 
nounces his resignation (1855), 265 ; 
speech in defence of his late colleagues 
against Roebuck's motion of censure, 
266; his mistake in joining the Coalition 
Ministry, 271 ; leisure, travel, &c., 
272 ; literary labours, 272-281, 354 ; 
and the pension for Moore, 278 ; 
remarks on his own career in ' Recol- 
lections and Suggestions,' 281, 336 ; 
allusiops to Joseph Lancaster, 282 ; 
work in the cause of education, 282- 
285, 339 ; scheme of National Educa- 
tion (1856), 284 ; opposes Lord 
Palmerston on the ' Arrow ' question, 
287 ; speech in the City and re-election, 
287, 288 ; supports Palmerston at the 
Indian Mutiny crisis, 288 ; on the 
Conspiracy Bill, 289, 290 ; supports 
Lord Derby in passing the India Bill, 
290 ; thanked by Jews for his aid in 
removing their disabilities, 291 ; 
attacks Disraeli's Reform Bill, 292 ; 
renewal of friendly intercourse with 
Palmerston, 293 ; relations with Cob- 
den and Bright, 294 ; joins Palmerston's 
Administration (1859) ^s Foreign 
Secretary, _ 295 ; introduces a new 
Reform Bill, 296 ; raised to the Peer- 
age, 297; acquires the Ardsalla estate, 
and receives the Garter, 298 ; his work 
at the Foreign Office, 299, 300 ; inter- 
vention in Italian afifairs, 304, 339 ; 
protests against the lannexation of 
Savoy by France, 305 ; receives 
Garibaldi at Pembroke Lodge, 307 ; 
his reception in Italy, 307 ;^and the 
' Trent ' affair, 311 ; and the ' Alabama ' 
case, 313-319, 341 ; on the Polish 
revolt, 321 ; and the Schleswig-Hol- 
stein difficulty, 322, 323 ; as Foreign 
Secretarj^, 323, 324 ; on Palmerston's 



380 



LORD JOHN RUSSELL 



RUS 

vivacity, 325 ; second Premiership on 
the death of Palmerston, 325 ; tribute 
to Lord Pahnerston, 327 ; defeated on 
the questions of Reform and Redis- 
tribution of Seats, 331 ; Mr. Lecky's 
reminiscences of him, 335-339 ', 
relations with colleagues and oppo- 
nents, 336, 337, 347 ;_ speech on the 
maintenance of the independence of 
Belgium, 340 ; letter on the claims of 
the Vatican, 341, 342 ; letters to the 
' Times ' on the government of Ireland, 
343 ; and Home Rule, 338, 343, 344 ; 
independent attitude towards the 
throne, 344 ; . relations with Loi^d 
Aberdeen, 346, 347 ; Lord Selborne's 
impressions of him, 345 ; his private 
secretaries' impressions of him, 347, 
348 ; life at Pembroke Lodge, 351-353 ; 
stories about doctors, 350 ; visit of 
Bulgarian delegates, 352 ; friendships, 
355 ; his use of patronage, 355 ; his 
children, 356 ; home life, and his 
children's reminiscences, 356-361 ; Dr. 
Anderson's recollections, 361 ; a 
meeting with Carlyle, 362 ; Lord 
Dufferin's recollections, 363 ; religious 
faith, 364 ; interview with Spurgeon, 
365 ; at Cheshunt College, 365 ; 
Nonconformist deputation, 366 ; 
' Golden Wedding,' 367 ; death, 367 ; 
opinion of Lord Shaftesbury, 368 ; a 
remark of Sir Stafford Northcote's, 

369 

Russell, Hon. Rollo, 360, 367 

Russell, William, Member of Parliament 
in the reign of Edward IL, 2 

Russell, Lord William (of the seventeenth 
century), i ; Lord John Russell's Bio- 
graphy of him, 274 

Russell, Lord William, Lord John 
Russell's brother, 6 ; wounded at 
Talavera, 14, 34 ; letter to Lord John, 

49. 
Russia, and India, 31, 218 ; projects and 
demands with regard to "Turkey, 223, 
224 ; occupation of Moldavia and 
Wallachia, 224, 229 ; rejection of the 
Vienna Note, 226 ; destroys Turkish 
fleet at Sinope, 230 ; evacuates the 
Principalities, 243 ; operations in the 
Crimea, 246-252 ; death of the Emperor 
Nicholas, 259 ; fall of Sebastopol, and 
losses in the war, 268 ; and the Polish 
revolt, 321 



Salamanca, battle of, 16, 17 
Sardinia, and the Crimean War, 267 
Schleswig-Holstein question, the, 172, 

322, 323 
Scott, Sir Walter, Lord John Russell's 

first acquaintance with, 9 ; and the 

Edinburgh Speculative .Society, n, 

91,355 



STA 

Sebastopol, siege and fall of, 246, 247, 
268 

Secret Memorandum, the, 216, 225 

Sefton, Lord, 75 

Selborne, Lord, on the ' Alabama ' case, 
312-319 ; impressions of Lord Russell, 
345 

Seymour, Sir Hamilton, 214 

Seymour, Lord Webb, 12 

Shaftesbury, Lord, and factory children, 
89 ; and Lord John Russell's support 
of Peel, 129, 130 ; and the Factory 
Bill, 159 ; special constable in 1848, 
167 ; and Cardinal Wiseman's mani- 
festo, 187 ; on the Coalition Govern- 
ment, 211, 212 ; 368 

' Shannon ' and the ' Chesapeake,' battle 
between the, 22 

Shelley and the Peterloo massacre. 38 

Sheridan, Mr., 25 

Sidmouth, Lord, 21, 40, 63, 85 

Simpson, General, 267 

Sinope, destruction of Turkish fleet at, 
230, 232, 233 

Slave trade, 22, 48, 89 

Smith, Rev. — , Vicar of Woodnesbo- 
rough, a tutor of Lord John Russell's, 6 

Smith, Dr. Southwood, and the Public 
Health Act, 162 

Smith, Sydney, friendship with Lord John 
Russell, 8 ; on Reform, 27 ; on the 
political situation after Canning's ac- 
cession to power, 50, 51 ; and ' Dame 
Partington,' 80 ; hopeful of the tri- 
umph of Reform, 84 ; and ' Lord John 
Reformer,' 90 ; on Lord John's in- 
fluence in the Melbourne Government, 

Society of the Friends of the People, 25, 
63 . 

Solferino, battle of, 303 

Spain : Lord John Russell's visit with 
Lord and Lady Holland, 9-1 1 ; Lord 
John's Sympathy, 9, 10 ; Lord John's 
second visit, 14, 15 ; Lord John's third 
visit and adventures, 16-20 ; entry of 
Wellington into Madrid, 16 ; the 
Spanish marriages, 171, 172 ; Lord 
Palmerston's interference, 174 

Spencer, Lord, on the alliance of Eng- 
land with France, 120 

Spurgeon, C. H., 365 

Stanhope, Colonel, 14, 15 

Stanley, Lord, and Irish affairs, 92, 93 ; 
Secretary for the Colonies, 93 ; and the 
Irish Church, 95 ; withdraws from 
Lord Grey's Cabinet, 95 ; Secretary 
for the Colonies under Peel, 124, 134 ; 
succeeds to the House of Lords, 141 ; 
challenges Palmerston's foreign policy, 
176 ; fails to form a Ministry on the 
resignation of Lord John Russell, 193 

Stanmore, Lord, 118, 119, 211, 231, 233, 

*^ 347 

Stansfeld, Mr., 327 



INDEX 



STE 

Stewart, Dugald, 12 

Stockmar, Baron, loi, 216 

Sussex, Duke of, and the claims of 

Dissenters, 53 
Sweden, and the Crimean War, 267 
Syllogism, a merry canon's, 19 

Tahiti incident, the, 125 

Tavistock, monastic lands granted to the 

I, first Earl of Bedford, 2 ; election of 
Lord John Russell as member for, 20, 
62 ^ ^ 

Tavistock, Lord, elder brother of Lord 
John Russell, 6, n 

Tennyson, Mr., 90 

Tennyson, Lord, his appointment as 
Poet Laureate, 355 

Test and Corporation Acts ; agitation for 
their total repeal, 53, 54 ; speech of 
Fox, 54, 55 ; their provisions, 54 ; 
jubilee of repeal, ^65 

Tithe Acts (Ireland): Mr. Littleton's 
Bill, 93, 94 ; Bill of 1835, 105, 107 ; 
Bill passes through Parliament, 112 

Tithe Commutation Act, 106, 107 

Tooke, Home, 26 

Trafalgar Square demonstration on the 
Reform question, 332 

Treason Felony Act, 157 

Treaty of Paris (1856), 268 

' Trent ' affair, the, 310-312 

Turkey: war with Egypt, 119 ; and the 
custody of the Holy Places.in Palestine, 
213 ; the ' sick man ' of Europe,_ 214, 
215 ; oppression of Christian subjects, 
217 ; reception of Lord Stratford de 
Redcliffe, 222 ; and the Vienna Note, 
224-227 ; ultimatum to Russia,^ 229 ; 
destruction of fleet by Russia at Sinope, 
230 ; and the second Congress at 
Vienna, 259-262'; and the Treaty of 
Paris, 268, 269 

University of London, 106, 107; pro- 
posed enfranchisement of, 296 

Vansittart, Mr., 21 

Vaughan, Cardinal, on Romish practices 
in the Anglican Church, 190,191 

Victor Emmanuel IT., accession to the 
throne of Sardinia, and efforts to 
secure Italian independence, 301 ; pro- 
claimed King of Italy, 306 

Victoria, Queen, accession, 107 ; her 
regard for Lord Melbourne, 108, log ; 
declines to dismiss her Whig Ladies- 
in-Waiting, 114 ; visit to Ireland, 158 ; 
instructions to Lord Palmerston, 178 ; 
letter to iord John Russell on the 
formation of a Coalition Government, 
203 ; her view of the Coalition Minis- 
try, 208 ; reply to letter from the Czar 
on the eve of the Crimean War, 230 ; 
and the death of the Prince Consort, 



ZUR 

309 ; letter to Lord Russell on the 
death of Palmerston, 326 ; opens Par- 
liament (1866), 328 ; letter to Lady 
Russell on the death of the Earl, 368 

Vienna, revolt of (1848), 171 ; Congress, 
224 ; second Congress, 259-262 

Vienna Note, 224-228 

Villafranca, Treaty of, 303 

Villiers, Mr. Charles, 121, 208 

Vittoria, battle of, 20 

Vitzthum, Count, 217, 324 

Walpole, Mr. Spencer, on the Arms 
Bill of the Russell Administration, 
154 ; retires from the Home Office on 
the introduction of Disraeli's Reform 
Bill, 291, 330 

Ward, Mr., and the Irish Church, 90, 

95 
Wellington, Duke of. Lord John 
Russell's first impressions of, 15, 16, 
17 ; described by Napoleon, 30, 50 ; 
becomes Prime Minister, 52 ; and 
Catholic Emancipation, 58, 59 ; his 
declaration against Reform, 61, 65 ; 
resignation, 62 ; predictions on the 
Reform question, 69 ; failure to_ form 
a Ministry, 83 ; lament on the triumph 
of Reform, 85, 114; opinion of Lord 
John, 123 ; and the Anti-Corn- Law 
agitation, 136, 137 ; and the demonstra- 
tion on Kennington Common of 1848, 
166, 167 ; and Sir Robert Peel, 176 ; 
death, 200 ; and the Emperor Nicholas, 
215 
Wesley, influence of the preaching of, 

24 
Westminster School, its condition at the 
beginning of the century, 3 ; Lord 
John's experiences at, 3-5 ; some of its 
celebrated scholars, 3, 4 

Westmoreland, Lord, 50 

Wetherell, Mr., and the first Reform 
Bill, 69 

Whitfield, influence of his preaching, 24 

Wilberforce, Willfam, 89 

William IV,, his accession, 61, 64; re- 
ceives a petition in favour of the Grey 
Administration, 80 ; refuses his sanc- 
tion for the creation of new peers, 83 ; 
lampooned, 83 ; urges the_ House of 
Lords to withdraw opposition to the 
Reform Bill, 84 ; dismisses the first 
Melbourne Ministry, r,oo, loi ; his 
opinion of Lord John Russell, loi 

Winchilsea, Lord, 57 

Wiseman, Cardinal, 182, 183, 186, 187 

Wolseley, Sir Charles, 38 

Wood, Sir Charles, 141, 193, 258 

Working classes, their condition and 
claims in 1848, 163-165 

Wynn, Mr. Charles, 41 

ZtJRJCH, Treaty of, 303 



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